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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23012998">Work in Progress</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/newwaves/pseuds/newwaves'>newwaves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mix of book and movie canon, Multi, Post-Canon, Processing Trauma, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:01:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23012998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/newwaves/pseuds/newwaves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the months following the events of Derry, Richie Tozier practically disappeared off the face of the earth. Nearly two years later, when he spontaneously turns up at Beverly and Ben's house, and his radio silence suddenly ends, there is a lot for the friends to work through. When Richie starts having horrible nightmares - nightmares that he is not alone in experiencing - it begins to become clear that there's much more going on than anyone had originally thought.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: this first chapter is a reupload of previous work of mine that has been edited after I changed my mind about the direction this was heading in.<br/>The rest of this work is entirely new.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Richie arrives in Hemingford Home. Beverly and Ben are confused.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>In my imagination, </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>There is no hesitation. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>We walk together hand in hand</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>I’m dreaming</em>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>A song wafts in through the doorway as Beverly Marsh begins to wake up. She struggles herself up into a sitting position, her sleep-addled brain beginning to power up. As if on cue, Ben appears at the end of their bed, humming along to the music, holding a large mug of coffee.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning.” His smile revives her.</p><p>He is dressed, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of old jeans, yet his feet are bare and his hair uncombed. He is currently somewhere between Morning Ben and Day Ben. He reaches down to hand her the coffee and Beverly takes this opportunity to stroke his cheek, stealing a kiss before he moves away from her. Ben pulls back, settling himself down next to her, hoiking his feet up on the bed frame, crossing his legs at the ankles. They sit at the opposing ends, facing one another. Bev takes a sip of the coffee and looks across at Ben. His hair has fallen into his eyes. He is so beautiful.</p><p>She closes her eyes as she feels the caffeine work its way through her body, she can almost feel each switch of her system being flipped, each individual part of her booting up, in preparation for the day. No one makes coffee like Benjamin Hanscom, that she is sure of.</p><p> </p><p>The music is still playing.</p><p>“What’s that?” She cocks her head toward their bedroom door, to the space beyond it, where the music exists.</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“The music.”</p><p>“Oh! Kylie Minogue.”</p><p>He looks almost bashful. She pokes a foot into his thigh teasingly from under the covers.</p><p>“Interesting choice. Did I wake up in Richie’s house by mistake?”</p><p>“Bev!” Ben’s eyes are wide, cautious, “Isn’t that…” he drops his voice to barely a whisper, “<em>homophobic</em>?”</p><p>Bev snorts into her coffee, sending the liquid shooting up her nose causing her to cough rather ungracefully.</p><p>“It doesn’t count when it’s Richie.” She manages when she has finished spluttering, swatting a hand in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey! I heard that!”</p><p>A familiar nasal voice from beyond the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s here?”</p><p>“Turned up earlier when I got back from my run. Won’t say why he’s here but he will happily devour most of our bacon and eggs.”</p><p>“Sounds about right.”</p><p>“Hey!” Richie is now standing in the doorway, “What is this, Be Mean to Richie Day?”</p><p>He looks fairly much the same as he did the last time Bev had seen him – when he’d come to stay over the New Year. But, there is something distinctly different about this Richie. His hair has grown out, wilder than she thought possible; he’s wearing suit trousers, socks with holes in, and an oversized green t-shirt that has ‘BIG PAUL’S COWBOY HOEDOWN – BEST BARBECUE IN MILWAUKEE’ emblazoned across it - even for Richie, this outfit is terrible.</p><p>“Isn’t every day?” Bev raises a daring eyebrow at him, placing her coffee down as she prepares for the inevitable.</p><p>As she knew he would, Richie leaps onto the bed, landing squarely across the point where Bev and Ben’s ankles meet. He writhes around there for a second before worming his way to the other side of the bed. He slings an arm around Bev, and she buries her head against his shoulder.</p><p>“Haha! You jest, but I know you both love me very much!”</p><p>“We do?” Ben smirks.</p><p>“Ah, the joker you are, Ben! I know you <em>wuv </em>me. Now, get over here Haystack before I steal your woman!” Richie smacks a pantomime kiss on Bev’s cheek. She slaps him jovially in the chest. Ben, listening to Richie, scoots around to the correct side of the bed, flagging Bev’s other side.</p><p>Bev untangles herself from Richie’s gangly limbs to curl into Ben for a moment, kissing him properly this time, feeling his warmth. His breath is still minty. She ignores Richie’s fake retching sounds from behind her.</p><p>“If you two are gonna smash please let me leave first.”</p><p> </p><p>In unison:</p><p>“’<em>Smash</em>’?!” – Bev.</p><p>“Beep beep, Richie” – Ben.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” Bev reluctantly pulls herself away from her comfortable position sandwiched between the two men, “I’m gonna go shower. You two can stay here if you want.”</p><p>Richie jumps to life at the open goal Bev has left for him.</p><p>“Now is our perfect chance to run away together, Haystack! Just you and me and our undying love! Quick, whilst Bevvie is showering!”</p><p>Ben laughs.</p><p> </p><p>Bev is over at the dresser, compiling her change of clothes for the day. She turns around and points a finger at Richie, “Hey, if you steal Ben, please know I will track you down and feed you to a dog.”</p><p>Richie cackles loudly at this, before lifting his hand to his forehead in a ridiculous salute. “Sir, yes Sir. Wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of Ms Marsh.”</p><p>Bev rolls her eyes at him. She is halfway out the bedroom door when an idea springs into her head, “Hey, Rich. I don’t know when you last showered, but there’s a spare one down the hall if you want to use it. I’m sure Ben will show you if you don’t remember where it is.”</p><p>Richie’s eyebrows knit together, “I don’t need to-“ he lifts the collar of his t-shirt to his nose and sniffs; he gags, “Yeah, okay, actually. But only for you, dear Bevvie.” He winks at her.</p><p>Bev leaves the room, heading through the conjoining door into the master en suite. She can hear the two men still talking as they head down the hall, out of sight.</p><p> </p><p>“So, are you joining me in the shower then, Benny Boy?”</p><p>“Beep fucking beep, Rich.”</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Richie is sitting on the sleek leather sofa when Beverly walks into the lounge. He looks considerably better than he had earlier that morning – his hair, still damp from the shower, has been scraped backwards from his face; he is wearing old clothes of Ben’s – a plain grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans. In fact, he looks decidedly normal. This in itself is perhaps worse to Beverly than the outfit he had been wearing previously – this <em>was </em>Richie after all; Richard Tozier was not known for his taste in fashion, rather, quite unquestionably, the exact opposite. Seeing Richie sitting on their posh sofa, sitting still and upright, wearing these clothes that made him look so… <em>ordinary</em> was more than sign enough that something was truly, properly, wrong.  </p><p> </p><p>“So, what are you doing here, Rich?”</p><p>Bev sits down next to him, she combs her fingers through her own towel-dried hair, wringing some of the leftover water onto the rug at their feet.</p><p>“What are you doing here?’ What, can’t a guy visit two of his nearest and dearest just 'cause?”</p><p>“Richie.” Softly. Softly, softly.</p><p>“Fine.” A breathy sigh, “Maybe things aren’t going so great in LA right now.”</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>“Not really. Not yet. I’m sorry, Bev.”</p><p>Beverly reaches across to her friend, lacing a hand through his. She pumps it gently, a comforting squeeze. She understands.</p><p>“Don’t be.”</p><p> </p><p>They sit there for a while, hand in hand, in warm and comfortable silence. Richie traces delicate patterns on Bev’s hand with his thumb.</p><p>Beverly is the first to break the silence.</p><p> </p><p>“You know you can stay here for a while if you don’t want to</p><p>
  <em>          (be alone) </em>
</p><p>go back to LA?”</p><p> </p><p>“That’d be nice.”</p><p> </p><p>A beat.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did Ben get to anyway?” Bev claps her hands on her thighs, standing up and heading over to the kitchenette on the other side of the couch. She busies herself with making a fresh pot of coffee.</p><p>“Oh, he’s in his office. He said he had some work to finish off.”</p><p>“You decided not to run away together then?”</p><p>Richie smiles, it almost meets his eyes “Hmm. It seems he’d rather stay here with you for some reason.”</p><p>Beverly bops him on the shoulder, “Understandable.”</p><p>“Besides, I didn’t want to be fed to a dog, anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>Bev holds a mug of freshly brewed coffee before Richie, which he accepts, wordlessly. She enjoys this part of their relationship. The knowing so innately what the other needs, the understanding that words weren’t needed, the ‘thank you’ hung in the air even if it had not been spoken, just as she had known he needed coffee without first asking him. It was like this for all of them, a deeper knowing that transcends their relationships and the state borders that separate them. She would pick up her phone to call Mike, for example – seemingly out of the blue – and Mike would answer, tickled, as he had just been doing the same. Their otherworldly challenges may be no more but the ties that bound them were stronger than ever. Beverly is sure of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you see Bill’s email?”</p><p>“The one from last week?”</p><p>“No, a new one, it came in this morning.”</p><p>“Oh, I haven’t checked mine yet.”</p><p>“Yeah, he said he’s in Florida with Mike. Spontaneous trip, apparently.”</p><p>“That’s nice.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill had been having a difficult time of it recently. When he finally returned home from Derry (to what was left of his career and marriage), he was notably informed that <em>Attic Room</em> had been wrapped without him. For the so-called screenwriter of the adaptation of his own damn book, he was now getting mere “story contribution” credit. (“Story contribution!” He’d cried down the phone to Bev, “Like I didn’t write the damn book and all but the last few pages of that godforsaken screenplay!”). He’d attempted writing some new things since, even making some serious headway with one idea, but nothing had stuck.</p><p>As for his marriage to Audra, well, try having your childhood trauma resurface, leaving your wife alone during production on a movie with little to no explanation, not contacting her for a month, and returning home talking of your dead friends with no explanation and expect everything to be the same. Bill and Audra had unfortunately separated in early 2017. Of course, the official stance for public appearances was simply: ‘taking time apart for a short while whilst they focus on their careers’ - tell that to all the books award-winning horror author William Denbrough hadn’t written since.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile, however, things had been going considerable better for one Michael Hanlon, former head librarian of Derry Public Library. Mike, of course, had left Derry soon after their reunion had concluded. In the thirty-odd years he had lived in the small town in Maine, Mike had acquired few possessions he truly cared about; in fact, to an outsider, say, Carole Danner (an assistant at the library and friend of Mike’s), for example, it would seem that Mr Hanlon’s most prized possession was that damn notebook he was always scrawling in. That notebook, of course, as we know, was in fact one as yet unpublished ‘<em>Derry: An Unauthorized Town History</em>’. Despite outward appearances, Mike did not deem this to be noteworthy; in fact, after the conclusion of his friends’ ‘reunion’ and despite his decades of work and research poured into it, Mike had unceremoniously chucked it. Mike had left Derry with few possessions, leaving everything let’s say ‘circus’-related behind to rot in the town’s bloated corpse. As he had crossed the state line a new feeling had come over Mike, a feeling he had not known to be possible, for the first time in three decades a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, he had left it all behind - just as the others had had the brief privilege of doing – but, this time it was permanent and real and gloriously <em>his</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly, our dear friend, knew all of these things. She knew them because she knew her friends. She knew them because they were together, even when they were not.</p><p>She was glad that Bill and Mike were spending time together. Truthfully, she had felt guilty in living so far away from Bill whilst he was going through a difficult time in his life, and living so far away from Mike when he had done so much for them in the past thirty years. Mike, their lighthouse keeper, their guide – did he not deserve them all to devote the next thirty years of their lives solely to him? Of course, he did. But, he was still Mike, thus, he would never deign to imagine allowing his friends to do so – to him, to all of them, whilst there was nothing quite like the feeling when all of them were together, the true happiness and satisfaction in their friendship came from seeing the others succeed and be content, no matter how far apart this meant they had to be.</p><p> </p><p>As for the other three surviving (although maybe that word was contestable) Losers, Beverly and Ben, of course, had left Derry together, Richie, on the other hand, had left Derry just as alone as he had re-entered it - perhaps considerably more so, even. Beverly – just as each Loser had – had left Derry with nothing. She may have been left the house in Tom’s will but she had no intentions of ever returning to it. Ben had been so kind to offer her shelter at his own house, and a week into living there Bev had spoken to her friend Kay McCall about the house problem. Kay – despite Beverly’s protests – had insisted on returning to the house for one last time, packaging up Bev’s clothes and few belongings and shipping them to Nebraska for her. Bev had sold the house soon thereafter, leaving all of her dead husband’s belongings to go with it. She had wanted nothing of that life to follow her here, not when she finally had a chance at being herself again.</p><p>Beverly and Ben rather enjoyed living together. Such an arrangement had allowed them to fully catch up on all the last years that had been stolen from them, and more than make up for the lost time. Beverly often lay in their bed at night, feeling the heat emanating from Ben’s body beside her and the shallow hum of his proto-snore that she wished she could have spent her whole life by his side. Ben, as we well know, felt the same.</p><p> </p><p>For Richie, life had been rather complicated. His world had been dislodged from its axis. He had returned to his life in LA, but nothing could ever be as it was before. When he had first arrived ‘home’, he had unceremoniously dumped his belongings in the hallway of his apartment and laid down in his bed. He hadn’t realised that time had continued beyond those four walls until he had received a phone call from Beverly to check on him – it had been three days. For all intents and purposes, he’d practically dropped off the face of the Earth. This three-day period had not been a fluke, no, but rather a sign of what was to come. He’d deactivated his social media accounts and stopped answering calls from his agent; his career and presence in the public eye had all but disappeared over the following year. Richie liked that. He didn’t want people to know him, he didn’t want to be recognised on the street, he didn’t want to be on TV. He didn’t want to be seen. So, of course, when he turns up and Ben and Bev’s house acting like everything is Completely Normal, Thank You, Sir, it raises more than a few questions.</p><p> </p><p>This is not the first time he had visited this house since Derry, however. The first Christmas they had spent there together – Ben and Bev, that is – they had invited the rest of the Losers to stay. Being in your forties with no children, siblings or spouses (and no parents now, in most of their cases) meant that the festive season could be rather lonely. Thus, they had spent the week before the big day and the week until New Year in the warm and welcoming abode of Ben and Beverly. It had been nice. Where perhaps in other places the word ‘nice’ could denote a need for a bigger word – ‘nice’? Why not ‘fantastic’, or ‘wonderful’, or any other such word? – here, the word fits perfectly as it was simply that – just <em>nice</em>.</p><p>They’d all wanted it to be more than that, and obviously, it had been comforting to have them all in the same place again, but it was undeniable that it could not feel Correct – not with two people missing, anyway. Christmas of 2016 was still far too soon after what had happened for any of them to be truly okay. They were free, yes, but they weren’t right just quite yet.</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Bev turns to Richie, leaning her mug of coffee against a knee, “if you don’t want to talk about why you’re here, can I guess?”</p><p>He grunts.</p><p>“Okay… So, when were you in Milwaukee?”</p><p>Richie’s brow furrows, “What?”</p><p>“Your t-shirt from earlier. ‘Big Paul’s Cowboy Extravaganza’ or something?”</p><p>“Oh, you mean ‘Big Paul’s Cowboy <em>Hoedown’!”</em> Richie’s face splits into a grin. A knot loosens slightly in Beverly’s stomach.</p><p>“Great name. And they <em>only</em> serve barbecue there, right?”</p><p>“Best barbecue in Milwaukee! Just as the shirt says!”</p><p>“Uh-huh. So, no cowboys?” Bev feels a wicked smirk creep around her mouth.</p><p>“Miss Marsh! I don’t know what you’re implying! I’ll have you know I’m a noted heterosexual!” Richie has a hand to his chest, his posh, old-timey Voice in use.</p><p>Beverly snorts laughter, raising an eyebrow at her friend.</p><p>“I went just for the barbecue!” His voice now back to normal, “The fact that there were plenty of very attractive cowboys there had absolutely nothing to do with it!”</p><p>“And were you wearing ass-less chaps too, or just them?”</p><p>“Oh, you wish you could see me in ass-less chaps!”</p><p> </p><p>Ben enters the room to see Beverly and Richie doubled over in laughter, tears streaming down their faces, babbling incoherently at each other before breaking into even louder laughter.</p><p>He can’t think of a more beautiful sight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter: <br/>I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bill and Mike come to visit. Mike and Richie have a heart-to-heart.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Richie had been staying with Ben and Beverly for three weeks when Bill and Mike come to visit. It’s Mike’s birthday and the whole group spend it together, drinking wine and eating food like there’s no tomorrow. Yes, it’s true that Richie had been staying with Ben and Beverly for three weeks when Bill and Mike came to visit and yet they were all still none the wiser as to why he was here or why he had disappeared from their lives for two years.</p><p> </p><p>Bill and Mike had arrived the previous night – they had driven the whole twenty-six-hour journey from Mike’s apartment. Mike had begun the journey heading off in his beat-up Chevy while Bill chatted away next to him. They had swapped positions when Mike had grown tired and Bill had driven until their stopover in a nondescript and traditionally rundown Tennessee motel. They’d shared a beer and eaten greasy hamburgers and fries and they’d laughed and reminisced. Oh, how it felt so good to travel halfway across the country with someone you loved to visit people you loved. Oh, how it felt to be loved; to be <em>known</em> by other people.</p><p>And so, they’d arrived at Ben and Beverly’s home on the eve of Mike’s 44<sup>th</sup> birthday. Richie had answered the door to them, wrapping Bill – the nearest of the two to his person – into a bearhug, Bill’s head disappearing somewhere into Richie’s chest. Next, Mike, a more matched peer to Richie’s size was grabbed through the doorway by the bespectacled man. Mike, being the same height as Richie, was able to return the hug in a way the Bill had not been, squeezing his friend’s shoulders and chuckling softly into his ear, “I missed you too, Rich”.</p><p>Richie smiled into Mike’s shoulder, only acutely aware of the tears that drip onto his friend’s jacket. “<em>Mikey</em>!” His words were muffled by Mike’s body, sounding more like garbled nonsense than a declaration of friendship. Nevertheless, Mike knows what was meant and grips Richie tighter.</p><p> </p><p>After dinner, the group sit in the rather luxurious living room of the Hanscom-Marsh household. Whilst Ben may be a highly successful and innovative architect, it would be fair to say that he knows positively fuck all about interior design - which is exactly where Beverly’s expertise arise. The lounge area is filled with sumptuous leather settees and cow-skin rugs, offset by bright cushions, a large wood fire and various lamps in lime greens, lemons and fuchsia - one such floor lamp is in the shape of a man mid-stride as if walking across the large living space to deliver a speech. Richie loves this space. He sees it as the perfect blend of his two friends - solid and stable and homely, as is Ben, and bright and curious and warm, as is Bev.</p><p>And here, in our present, this group of friends sit amongst this divine intersection of life and love and swap stories and jokes like recipes at a Church fête. That is until Richie excused himself to the kitchen and disappears for a rather suspicious amount of time.</p><p>Beverly finds Richie in the kitchen, pouring himself a rather large glass of Wild Turkey. She places her wine glass on the counter, refilling it with rouge.</p><p> </p><p>“So, Bill and Mike, huh?” She grins as she sips from her glass.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Bill and Mike – Do you think they’re together? It’s like they’re joined at the hip and I swear I saw them holding hands earlier.”</p><p>“What am I, your fucking gay seeing-eye dog?”</p><p>“Whoa, Rich. I didn’t- That’s not what I- “</p><p>“Yeah! Okay, yeah! I do think there’s something going on between them! Is that what you wanted?”</p><p>“Richie…”</p><p>“I just wanted to spend the evening with my fucking friends but instead I’m sitting there fifth-wheeling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you all. I’m so goddamn happy for you all and I love you all <em>so</em> much, but… but it’s reminding me of just how <em>fucking</em> lonely I am. It’s stupid and self-pitying bullshit, but I’m just so alone and I’m so sick.”</p><p>Beverly grabs his hand and kisses it gently. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“No, I’m sorry, you were having fun before.”</p><p>“You’re more important to me.” Then, “Is this why you’re here? Why you didn’t want to go back to LA?”</p><p>Richie nods meekly, “I just can’t walk around there where everyone is so insanely happy all the time and pretend that I’m not in agony every goddamn day.”</p><p>“Grief is complicated.”</p><p>He looks at her. She knows. How does she know? But, of course, she does. She knows because she knows him. Hadn’t she known on that dreaded day, hadn’t she whispered to him - so kindly, so softly, so filled with pain - that he was gone, that she was sorry?</p><p>“Fuck, Beverly. I just don’t know anymore.”</p><p>Beverly runs and absorbs him into a hug. She gently removes Richie’s glasses and places them on the worktop counter beside them, careful not to dirty them, and delicately wipes his tears. She says nothing, and neither does he. She holds him whilst he cries.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Bill and Mike stay for the weekend. They may not outwardly say what has changed in the dynamic of their relationship, but it is profoundly clear in the way they look at each other – Bill, staring up at Mike, utterly besotted; Mike, looking at Bill like he is the only person in the world. Beverly is over the moon for them. Richie loves them so deeply and sincerely that his jealousy burns like acid in his stomach – he is truthfully so goddamn happy for them but that angry part of him can’t help but twitch every time he sees them together. Ben, meanwhile, is absolutely none the wiser. Richie sometimes thinks that Mike and Bill could kiss right in front of Ben and he would still just think they were just really good friends. It’s not that Ben is ignorant, just rather oblivious, particularly when in the presence of Beverly.</p><p>Richie often thinks that he’d like to end up with someone like Beverly – or rather, someone who makes him feel like she makes Ben feel – someone so beautiful and perfect for him; the other half of his whole. He thinks that perhaps he could have, in another world; in another time where things had ended differently that dreadful day.</p><p> </p><p>Richie is wandering the halls of the Hanscom-Marsh home on one evening of this weekend when he hears an odd sniffling noise coming from a nearby bathroom. He knocks tentatively before barging his way through the door.</p><p>“Mike?”</p><p>He is rather surprised to find Mike sitting on the edge of the bath, rubbing at his cheeks with his palms. His eyes look red and sore and Richie immediately knows that he has been crying.</p><p>“Oh, hey Rich, I was just, uh….”</p><p>“Are you okay, man?” Richie saves Mike’s floundering for an excuse.</p><p>“Honestly? Not really.”</p><p>You know, Bill’s been trying to encourage me to go back to college.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s what you’re crying over? I get it, dude. I flunked out of college in the first semester.”</p><p>Mike offers a breathy chuckle, “I got my Bachelors back in the day and Bill reckons I can fastback my MA through an online college and then straight into a PhD from that. I’ve, uh… I’ve applied to study at FSU - doctorate of philosophy, specialising in history.”</p><p>“Holy shit! Mike, that’s fucking incredible, dude! So, what, you’ll be <em>Doctor</em> Michael Hanlon?”</p><p>“Maybe.”</p><p>“So, is that really what all this is about?” Richie sits down on the edge of the bath next to Mike, placing a gentle hand on his thigh. “Fucking college, man?”</p><p>Mike’s chest heaves as he begins to talk, “I know It’s dead; I know it’s all over. But I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s so ridiculous because I <em>know </em>we’re free, but… all those stories; all those damn stories people told me in Derry, they stay with you, man. The things I’ve heard… Christ, they put Bill’s books to shame.”</p><p>“Like that’s hard.”</p><p>Mike chuckles, a delightful sound, his sniffling has almost subsided.</p><p>“What about Bill?"</p><p>“You realised, huh?”</p><p>“It’s kind of hard not to when you guys look at each other like that. How’d that happen?”</p><p> </p><p>And so, Mike told him. He told him how he’d been sitting in his office in his new apartment in Florida when Bill had rung. Bill had explained how Audra had rightfully filed for divorce and he hadn’t known who else to call. Mike had graciously offered in his abode to his dear friend, saying it was no problem at all if Bill needed somewhere to stay for a while. Bill had arrived in Florida two days later. As for the development of their relationship, well, they’d been sitting in Mike’s lounge one evening talking over a few beers.</p><p>“It’s nice to see you happy, Mikey.” Bill had had the grand tour of Mike’s new place and was overwhelmed by how correct it all felt… to see Mike in such an environment, free, the weight finally lifted, by God if the man wasn’t practically glowing.</p><p>“Thanks, man. It’s nice to have people in my life again. I missed it.”</p><p>Bill’s face had immediately darkened and Mike instantly regretted his word choice.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Mike. We never should have left you in Derry all those years. It wasn’t fair for you, having to live with it whilst we all got to move on… If I’d known, if I’d remembered…”</p><p>“You didn’t know; you couldn’t have known. It’s okay, really.”</p><p>“No, man.” Bill’s voice had wavered, “It’s all my fault if I hadn’t have roped you all into this when we were kids we could’ve all had normal damn lives. Stan and Eddie would still be alive! Everything would’ve been fine!” Bill had begun to cry, his body shuddering in heaving sobs.</p><p>“Bill, no! Bill, hey, look at me!” Mike had reached for his friend, holding his face delicately in his hands, “You can’t think like that, you know that’s not true. You saved us all, man. We couldn’t have done anything without you – more than that, you brought us all together and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. Getting to know you all, getting to have you all in my life – no matter how long – it was the best damn thing to ever happen to me. I want you to know that.”</p><p>Their faces were close together, so close they were practically touching. Bill had looked up at Mike, concern burning in his eyes. He hadn’t noticed before how beautiful Mike was. Suddenly, the writer was lost for all words, and so instead he leaned forward and kissed his friend. It was a slight shock, to begin with, but a nice one, the odd <em>‘oh, I’m kissing my friend’</em> feeling passed and Bill moved to deepen the kiss when Mike pulled away.</p><p>“Are you sure about this? I mean, you’re in the middle of divorce proceedings and I don’t want you to do anything you might regret.”</p><p>Bill felt the words before he spoke them, knowing they were the closest to the truth of perhaps anything he’d ever said or felt, “I’ve never been surer of something in my life.”</p><p> </p><p>“Does Bill…. Does he <em>know</em>?”</p><p>Mike exhales a short breath, smiling “Yes and no, he knows I have nightmares sometimes but I won’t tell him the specifics; he’s doing so well and I don’t want to drag him down with me.”</p><p>“You know, I doubt he’s doing as well as you think. I mean, what we went through – what you went through alone all those years – what Bill went through losing his brother and his parents basically too; people don’t just walk away from these things unscathed. It’s fucking difficult but it’s normal to not be okay, I think we all need to get used to that somehow.”</p><p>“Since when were you this insightful?”<br/>
<br/>
“Since living with Beverly Marsh. Since when were you this snarky, man?”</p><p>“Since living with Bill Denbrough.” Mike offers a watery grin and Richie pulls him into a hug. “He’s doing so much better than me and I just don’t want to bring him down. I guess I just thought that if I loved him enough, everything would work out.”</p><p>“You know it was weird - I didn’t remember everything all at once. even by the time I left Derry, there were things that were still coming back to me in pieces. But, one thing I did remember was you. That time we smoked out the clubhouse so we could have a vision quest and everyone wimped out one by one until it was just me and you left. and I remembered how fucking terrified I was, but you held my hand and I knew that as long as we were together - as long as we had each other - we’d get through it. I believed in you before I believed in any of the rest of that shit; it was you that got me through it all both times, you taught me that as long as we were all together, we could do it. I owe you a lot for that Mikey. I just wish I’d paid more attention to that in the past two years.”</p><p>“Is this you saying we need to stay here?”</p><p>“No, man. It’s me saying that you’re the fucking best, dude. And wherever we are, as long as we stay in touch, we’ll never be apart. Not again.”</p><p>When they both leave the bathroom together, half an hour later, streaming laughter and jokes behind them Bill is standing in the hallway; he raises his eyebrows before continuing on his way.</p><p>Bill and Mike leave for Florida later that night.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>He is laying on a bed in a room – his room, no, not his room; the room in Ben and Beverly’s house he has been staying in. Except, no, it’s not quite that either. The walls aren’t the welcoming stone colour he’s grown used to, but they are an ugly aged yellow instead. A sound like leaves being swept across a lawn alerts him to the ripped posters that hang from the walls. The breeze swims through the room, biting at his feet and boring into his bones. His head aches. The wind, he realises, is coming from an open window at the other side of the room. He tries to roll over, to get up to close it, but he can’t. He lays, stuck to the double bed, immobile. Cold air gusts through the room, whipping the bedsheets against his body until they sting, the posters flap and flutter against the walls at a deafening octave. He thinks he might go mad. Why can’t he move? Why can’t he MOVE?</p>
  <p>Hands! Suddenly, hands! He’s not sure where they appeared from but they grip at his ankles and wrists, restraining him. The hands are dead cold and it churns his stomach to think of that. Dead hands, their vice grip, rigor mortis, dirt and ash and dust. There’s someone else in the room. He can’t see them but he knows it with painful certainty. Something bites his arm and flinches – or rather, he would flinch if he could move, and no, it’s not a bite, is it? Because it is still going; it is moving. The skin on his right arm splits open lengthways, he screams at the pain. There should be blood and flesh and bones and connective tissue and muscle but no. No. Steel wool bubbles out of the wound. His skin itches and rips against it. He can feel cuts to his torso and more steel wool pools out, coarse and rough and abrasive and cold, it scratches against him. He screams but his voice is not there. He screams and he screams, his limbs are being meticulously sliced into, surgically opened but he is full of nothingness. Coldness where there should be warmth, sharp steel wool where there should be organs. His screaming changes nothing. Why is this happening? If he could move he could stop this… if he could move it would end… why can’t he move? Oh, God, why can’t he <em>MOVE</em>?</p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>Richie wakes up in his room in Ben and Beverley’s house slick with sweat, his t-shirt is stuck to his chest. He breathes shakily as he stands up, staggering to the ensuite bathroom before violently vomiting into the toilet bowl. <em>Nightmare</em>. Back in his room, he fumbles his phone from the nightstand and immediately dials Mike.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter: <br/>The Ultracheese - Arctic Monkeys</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Beverly and Richie have a chat. Mike worries from afar.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CONTENT WARNINGS:<br/>(skip if you don't want spoilers)</p><p> </p><p>mentions of vomit, pregnancy, smoking, miscarriage, menstruation and abuse</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mike had listened intently on the other end of the phone despite it being the middle of the night. He had shut himself in the bathroom of their Lincoln motel room, in an attempt not to wake Bill, and let Richie scrabble through the regurgitation of his dream. The vividness of which Richie spoke, the abstraction and the overwhelming panic had sounded eerily close to home for Mike, reminiscent of far too many of Mike’s own nightmares. There was one thing, however, that had not sounded similar. Richie had been sick when he awoke, violent retching into the toilet bowl until stringy bile was all that was left. The way Richie had described this – so beyond his control, more so than normal sickness, like some outside force had reached into his stomach and shoved its contents up out of his throat. This had worried Mike greatly, but hearing the horror and anxiety in his friend’s voice he had simply reassured Richie that it was nothing to worry about – but that, should this continue, he should keep Mike updated, just in case.</p><p>After the call had ended Mike had returned to the room, crawling back into bed beside Bill. Bill had slung an arm around him, shimmying himself across the mattress until his face rested neatly between Mike’s shoulder blades. Mike could feel Bill’s warm breath on his back as he snored lightly behind him. For Mike, however, sleep would not come again that night.</p><p> </p><p>Richie pads out of his room onto the cold floor of the hallway still wearing his sleep attire of old t-shirt and boxers. He stumbles through the house, unnerved by its silence. He passes the living room and checks the time on the large art deco clock on the wall. It’s earlier than he thought, early enough that Ben must still be out running, but he should be able to hear Beverly. At this time of the morning, she would normally be watching TV or listening to the radio while she ate or worked. But no, there’s silence. It’s only when he reaches the kitchen that he realises where she must be. The pleasant sound of birdsong fills the room and a cool breeze sweeps in from the back door, left ajar. Richie opens the door to find Beverly sat on the back step, wearing an oversized sweatshirt of Ben’s and some leggings. Her face is oddly blank and she is smoking. Richie sits down next to her and wordlessly she hands him a cigarette and her lighter. He sparks the light and takes a deep drag, inhaling the musty smoke. Richie looks out across the backyard that stretches out into the forest beyond it. The air is oaky, with the smell of dew and cigarette smoke intermingling. The birdsong grows louder, the tall trees across the yard swaying in the breeze; the birds hopping frantically from one branch to another. Richie suddenly wishes he knew more about ornithology and his heart aches for Stan. Stan would know what kinds of birds they were.</p><p>Beverly pulls a folded-up piece of paper out of her sweatshirt pocket and places it in Richie’s lap. Richie begins to unfurl the yellow paper, its black ink contents smudged slightly at the top. He scans the document with his brow furrowed, confused. It’s not until he reaches the last word that he suddenly understands what Beverly has given him.</p><p> </p><p>“Patty? As in, <em>Stan’s</em> Patty? Patty Uris?”</p><p>Beverly nods solemnly.</p><p>“Wait, hang on. This says she’s stopping writing to you – you two were in contact? Wh- What is this?”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly sighs, stubbing out her cigarette against the back wall and flicking it out into the expanse of garden. Beverly and Patty had been communicating through letters. After settling into Ben’s house in Hemingford Home, Beverly had decided to send Patty a letter.  She had used the return address from Stan’s. She had initially reached out to her intending to be a one-time event; she had wanted to offer her sympathy and try and explain what she could about the rather difficult situation they had all been in. She learnt from Patty’s response that Stan had left his wife a letter as he had for the others, attempting to explain the situation. Of course, your husband’s sudden death doesn’t exactly become easier to process when you find out the connections to a demon clown. Since this first correspondence, Patty and Beverly had continued to write to each other, at first bonding over their grief and memories of Stan, and then about anything at all. They’d managed to strike up a real friendship despite never having met in person. Or so Beverly had thought, until Patty’s final letter had arrived this morning, explaining that she couldn’t write anymore. There was no explanation given – Patty had simply stated that it was too difficult for her to continue their correspondence and that she would no longer be writing. Beverly had noticed how much she’d come to rely on Patty’s letters every month until she’d had the news.</p><p> </p><p>“Why did she just stop?”</p><p>“You’ve read the letter, you know as much as me.”</p><p>“Did you say something in your last letter that upset her?”</p><p>“No!” Beverly stood up, returning to the kitchen behind her. “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”</p><p>Richie stubs out his cigarette against the wall and follows her inside, “I didn’t mean you’d done anything intentionally! Just maybe you hit a nerve without realising.”</p><p>“No… I…” Beverly busies herself by pouring out two mugs of coffee, “No.”</p><p>“Okay,” Richie raises his hands defensively, “Sorry. What do you even talk to Patty about anyway?”</p><p>Beverly takes a long sip of warm coffee, pulling up a stool at the kitchen counter. “I don’t know, lots of things. It was just nice having a friend that was outside of our immediate bubble but who still had some idea of what we’d all been through, I suppose. I mean, I love Kay and she’s a wonderful friend, but I couldn’t even begin to explain to her all the stuff that’s happened to us.”</p><p>“Yeah, I get that. It’s like - ‘Hey, I have PTSD that comes from an ancient being that used to terrorise our neighbourhood as a child-eating clown when I was a kid, how are you?’”</p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p> </p><p>The back door opens and in walks a very red-faced, sweaty-looking Ben. “Mornin’” he grins into the room, pulling his earphones out and slinging them over his shoulder for safekeeping. He kicks off his running shoes and makes his way over to the counter, stealing a sip of Bev’s coffee before planting a gentle kiss on the top of her head.</p><p>“I’m gonna grab a shower.” Ben makes to move away, but Beverly pulls him into an embrace. Richie watches as she nestles into him, inhaling his sweat and warmth, listening to his pounding heart drum against his chest – a reminder that he is here and he is real and he is alive.</p><p>Richie feels something catch in the back of his throat and coughs loudly to clear it. Ben and Bev pull away from each other, startled, clearly having forgotten he was even here. Ben heads off for his shower, leaving Richie and Beverly alone in the kitchen once more.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Bill and Mike are sitting in a diner in St. Joseph, Missouri. They had set off fairly early that morning, with Bill driving the first leg of the journey whilst Mike dozed in the passenger seat. And now, finally, out of Nebraska, they sit opposite one another in a rundown diner, drinking lukewarm coffee and eating stale doughnuts. Mike is looking out of the window, they are in the middle of an industrial park, concrete and brick for as far as the eye can see. Mike misses the lushness of foliage that surrounds the Hanscom-Marsh home. The greenness of it all; the thick grass that is so soft and the trees, ancient deities that stand tall and strong, forming a protective ring around the house. He thinks about returning to the damp humidity of Florida, cabbage-palms lining the roads; the drive to the coast. He loves it, he loves being able to smell the salt whipped up from the sea by the wind and feel the warmth of the sun as it beams down on his face. More than anything, though, he thinks he enjoys the fact that he’s no longer in Maine.</p><p>“I’m worried about Richie.” Mike looks up from his doughnut to see Bill’s concerned face, his forehead creased and his blue eyes dark.</p><p>“So am I – he was acting strange the entire time we were there, right?”</p><p>“Definitely. I mean he still hasn’t told us what the hell happened when he was off the radar for two whole years.”<br/>
<br/>
“Two years is a long damn time.”</p><p>“Not long enough, sometimes.”</p><p>There’s a faraway look in Bill’s eyes that makes Mike’s stomach clench. He reaches across the table to hold Bill’s hand.</p><p> </p><p>“I know.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s just after lunch and Richie is wandering the halls of Ben and Beverly’s home again. He can hear Ben in his office on a conference call, passionately explaining the importance of glass panelling in the walls - how the desire should always be for light to be let in; how it’ll make the space feel fresher and more welcoming. Richie smiles to himself. He continues on down the hallway. Photographs line the walls. There’s one of Ben, maybe around ten years younger, grinning as he squats down next to a large chocolate Labrador, his arm wrapped around it lovingly. There’s a series of photos of Ben at various award ceremonies, looking bashful as he awkwardly shakes hands with the person on stage. Richie imagines Ben protesting as Beverly insists on displaying these, telling him he should be proud of his accomplishments. Next, there’s one of Beverly standing at the end of a runway, her hands on her hips. Her hair is long and flows wildly over her shoulders. She looks young and is grinning giddily, Richie guesses this must have been taken at her senior showcase during college. The last picture on the wall is of the both of them, they sit on a beach at dusk. Ben wears a loose-fitting denim shirt, his sunglasses pushed up over his hair, Beverly wears a yellow swimming costume and a blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Ben is holding a glass of white wine and they are both laughing at something off-camera. Bev’s cheeks are almost as red as her hair. They both look so beautiful.</p><p> </p><p>Richie keeps walking down the hallway until he’s outside Bev’s office. The door is open so he walks straight in. Beverly is sketching a new design at her desk. Watercolour pencils and felt tips are strewn across her workspace. Similar sketches are pinned to a large corkboard in front of her, pops of colour depicting ideas for fabric designs break up the graphite outlines. There’s a mannequin next to her desk with the early stages of a pattern pinned to it. A large draped collar and a wrap waist – the start of a suit maybe, Richie guesses. He moves over to the cream loveseat at the back of the room, scooping swatches of fabric up from it and moving them to a nearby stool before dropping himself down onto the sofa.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks” Beverly nods towards the stool where Richie has folded - albeit messily - her fabric out of the way.</p><p> </p><p>Richie smiles in response.</p><p>“Bev, can I ask you something?”</p><p>Beverly pushes the pencil she was using into her bun out of the way, a streak of blue suspended in her mass of red hair. She turns fully to face her friend, her attention on him.</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s Patty like?”</p><p>Beverly crosses her arms across her chest, “Funny… kind.”</p><p>“Like Stan.”</p><p>“Yeah, like Stan. They really loved each other.”</p><p>“That’s nice.”</p><p>“Did you know that Stan was an accountant? One of the best in Atlanta – if not <em>the</em> best.” Beverly smiled an awfully sad smile, her eyes wet with tears, “He was still into birdwatching. He used to drag Patty around nature reserves so he could ‘collect’ more birds. She said she misses that now more than anything.”</p><p>“I wish we’d got to know him as an adult.”</p><p>“Yeah. He was the best.”</p><p> </p><p>Richie smiles, feeling the tears leak down his cheeks. He misses Stan. He thinks of him, when they were teenagers, the way he’d excitedly ramble on about the latest bird he’d spotted in the park whilst Richie would argue with Eddie over the plot of the most recent Star Trek episode. He thinks about Stan’s particular nature, how he’d bought them all shower caps to wear in the clubhouse, how neat his handwriting was, how he’d defied all of that at his Bar Mitzvah; how Richie had stood up and clapped. Stan was a force to be reckoned with, and God, Richie misses him.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly gasps suddenly, before letting out a loud sob. She buries her head in her hands.</p><p> </p><p>“Bev?”</p><p><em>“Fuck!</em> I think I know why Patty doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.”</p><p>“Okay”</p><p>“She mentioned how they’d tried to conceive so many times and I didn’t even think of that! Oh, God, I was so insensitive! Shit, I’m such an idiot.”<br/>
<br/>
“What are you talking about?”</p><p> </p><p>“I had a pregnancy scare.”</p><p>“Wh- when?”</p><p>“About a month before you arrived.”</p><p>“Oh, Bev.”</p><p>“I’m fine. Everything is fine.”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yeah. I was relieved, actually.”</p><p>She can see Richie’s brain whirring at her use of that word.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“I’m just not sure I can do it.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s okay. Not everyone wants kids, that’s normal.”</p><p>She sighs deeply, getting up and pacing across the small room. “I know. I just feel like a terrible person.”</p><p>“Why would you feel like that?”</p><p>“Just... My period was late and I was scared. I was more than scared, I was terrified. And I felt so fucking horrible for it. I couldn’t tell Ben because I didn’t want to get him excited over nothing and I didn’t want to see his heart break if nothing happened. But, God, when my period came I was so fucking happy. It’s just like... I’m 43. Did you know that if you get pregnant at my age it’s considered a geriatric pregnancy? There’s just so much that can go wrong and I just couldn’t cope with it. I don’t think I could cope with that. I mean, even if everything was okay and I had a baby and it was healthy - what about if something happened to me? I would be in my sixties when that kid went off to college! That’s insane!”</p><p>“Bev, people are having kids later now. I don’t think it’s a big deal.”</p><p>“No, it is! It <em>is</em> a big deal! I look at Ben and I see someone who would be such a good dad and I feel like the worst person in the world for not wanting to do that for him. And Ben is so amazing, he is so beautiful and kind and I know he’d tell me that it’s okay - that he doesn’t want children; that he’s happy with just us. And it all just makes me so angry, you know? Because things could’ve been different - all those years of our lives that were stolen from us! What if none of that had happened? What if Ben and I had been allowed to be in love and have a family and a life? It’s just not fair. It’s just not fucking fair and I hate it.”</p><p>“Bevvie...” Richie’s voice is so soft.</p><p>“I think it’s just.... even if I had a child, even if everything was okay, even if I made peace with being <em>geriatric</em>, what if -“ she chokes, slumping down onto the loveseat beside Richie, “what if I wasn’t a good parent?”</p><p>“<em>Bev.</em>” She can hear his voice break. She hates it.</p><p>“It’s so stupid, I’m sorry. I just think about my childhood and then Tom... If there’s any good that came out of everything that happened it’s bringing you all into my life and making sure I never brought a child into the world with that… that <em>cunt</em>. And I am so glad for that. I am <em>so</em> glad. But then I think about it all, you know? And I just think, if there was one common denominator in all of those horrible things... it was me.”</p><p>“No. Don’t even say it.”</p><p>“What if I’m like them, Richie?”</p><p>Richie grabs Beverly’s face in his hands, feeling her tears wet his fingers. “Don’t you dare say that.”</p><p>Beverly closes her eyes and rests her head into one of Richie’s hands. His flesh is warm against hers but his skin is cracked. She can feel the broken skin on his palm rough against her cheek.</p><p> </p><p>“I just don’t want them to still have that over me.”</p><p>Richie leans forward and gently presses a kiss to her forehead.</p><p>“Beverly Marsh is so strong and so beautiful and so <em>fucking</em> resilient. You are so much more than them and you always have been. Please, don’t ever think otherwise.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly rolls her head in Richie’s hand, kissing his palm gently.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>“Of course, you do.”</p><p>She laughs into his hand, a laugh that's so sudden that it causes her to snort. Richie pulls his hand away, feigning disgust. He makes a show of groaning and wiping his hand on his shirt. She pulls away from him, sitting upright. Richie is smiling at her, soft and caring and understanding. He reaches over and wipes a tear from her cheek.</p><p>“You’re too good to me.”</p><p>“Shh, don’t tell the others, but you’re my favourite.”</p><p>She bats his shoulder gently, before curling up into it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He is dreaming again, he knows that. He is surrounded by darkness, closing in on him, suffocating him. He is running, or at least he thinks he is. There is something out there in the beyond; he is running towards it but he can’t see it. And there, somewhere in the darkness, music. A tune he can’t quite place, lyrics he doesn’t quite recognise. He knows he hasn’t heard this song before but in the same way he knows that it is real. How can that be the case? How can he be dreaming about a song he’s never heard? The lyrics careen into him, spilling into his pores, coursing through his veins.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Wait</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>There's something that I want to say</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Something that we hid away</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Something that I'd like to change</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>These words have never left a mouth</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>We never got to get it out</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Communication not allowed</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Some things we don't talk about</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>The music consumes him. It is all he can hear, all he can feel; all he can think. But there’s something there, there’s something waiting for him at the end of it - no, <em>someone</em>. He pushes against the current, struggling to swim through the musical notes that now threaten to drown him. If he could get to the end he would know what it all meant, what was waiting for him.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>(Free your soul) </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Free your soul to me </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>He can’t breathe. He can’t reach the end. The music quickens in pace, his breathing swept into a frenzy. Why can’t he reach the end? What’s there? His heart thunders inside his chest.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Can you make it go away? </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Make it stop, stop</em>
  </p>
</blockquote>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As a non-American, I know very little about the weather &amp; geography of American cities. Please forgive any mistakes due to my limited knowledge!</p><p>Song for this chapter: <br/>Wait - Take That</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ben does some thinking. Plans are made.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It can be hard to wake up from a bad dream, and, for a good portion of Beverly's life, this was exactly how she felt. Life had not been easy on her. Nor, though, had it been on her friends. This was one of many things they shared in common. In fact, if you asked any of them, they would tell you for a fact that it was indeed the main thing that united them. No, life had not been easy for this poor group of people. And now, for the first time in a goddamn long time, things were beginning to look like they could get better. This group of friends, united in their plight, had once been much greater in number than its current state. It was odd that seven had seemed like so many and now five could seem like so few.</p><p>But, alas, as many things in their lives had not been so simple, getting better was taking a lot longer than any of them had anticipated. For Beverly, this meant often waking up screaming, shuddering, fear running through her like an ice core. This was not to suggest that she had been having bad dreams - no, quite the opposite. Rather, Beverly Marsh did not dream at all anymore.</p><p>At first, she had been grateful for the reprieve, welcoming the peace with open arms. But now, two years on, not so much. She had assumed, at first when she had begun to wake up mid-scream, that she had simply been having nightmares she could not remember. This was hardly unusual, it happens to everyone. Yet, as this continued, she had begun to worry - two years of consistently not-remembering dreams, surely, that was not normal. The silence scared her, quite frankly. A still quiet that in itself is unsettling. At first, when it was all over, after Derry, after finding out Tom had died, she was terrified that she would dream of him. That he would live on in her unconscious mind; that she wouldn’t be able to escape that easily. But that had not happened. Sometimes, though, she would wake up shaking and sweating – certain that she must have dreamt – but nothing would return to her. On those occasions, she would look over and see the man lying beside her and her heart rate would skyrocket, panic scrabbling through her. It was then that she would see Ben’s face and return to Earth. Her breathing would slow and the wobbly feeling in her chest would begin to decline. In the instances that Ben would be awake for this, he would sit up with her, talking to her about anything at all, grounding her, waiting for her to come back. He would not touch her; he knew not to. He had tried once, in good nature he had reached across their bed, attempting to hold her hand to calm her. Beverly had flinched away so violently that Ben had not made that mistake since.</p><p>Beverly hated that she still had these episodes. Tom had been dead for over two years now, had that not been long enough? Had she not had enough of her life monopolised by him and men like him? She just had to remember that recovery was a hell of a long process. She had been through a lot, and that, unfortunately, was not something one simply just got over so quickly. That’s what her therapist had told her, anyway.</p><p>In the meantime, she would lay in bed beside Ben, calming herself, centring herself, remembering to breathe as she had been told. This was par for the course of recovery and she had to shoulder it and continue on. At the very least, - despite the stone that wriggled in her gut, telling her that blankness was surely not good - she was glad that she didn’t dream of him, that she could barely remember what his face looked like, what he smelt like. That, she was glad of.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There was something to be said for fresh air. The way it needled at your skin and cleared your head and filled your lungs. That was what Ben liked the most about running. Whatever his original intention had been all those years ago, that was why he ran now. Running early in the morning was best of all - the air still cool and slightly damp, the sweet smell of dew wafting up from the grass as he trampled across fields, his ankles and running shoes slick green with the offcuts. Birdsong and soft pink sky and the emptiness - oh, the emptiness! Hemingford Home was quiet in the mornings, a model town from a child's trainset. The child still asleep, and all activity momentarily is forgotten. All activity except Ben, pushing against the air and the grass and the quiet, running through the town like he was the only person who lived there. He could really think in these times. The peace offering a welcome solace from the noise of his work. He could run through the town, hearing nothing but his own feet slapping the ground and by God, it was as if each impact jogged a thought into its correct place. <em>Smack!</em> - his feet on the concrete - a window there would open the room up. <em>Smack!</em> the walls should be made from reclaimed wood. <em>Smack!</em> he should make eggs for lunch today. And so on.</p><p>It is this morning when he is running that it suddenly occurs to him that Richie is the only one of them not to have done any work. Not that he should be working, of course, he doesn’t <em>need</em> to, but the Richie he had known growing up could not go five minutes without making some terrible attempt at a joke, but this Richie - the one that lives in his home and eats his food - this Richie barely bothers to crack wise anymore. Even in Derry, amongst all the delirium and chaos, Richie had still been trying to make them laugh, as he had always done. And, even if none of them was to admit it to his face, he was actually funny. In the interim between Derry and Now, Ben had even gone so far as to watch Richie's previous Netflix specials.  He'd cried laughing throughout them, amazed at how genuinely brilliant Richie could be. Ben would be remiss to forget that Richie could have been the top of their class at school if he'd wanted to be; that getting good grades was easy for him, he just didn't necessarily care about it.</p><p>Time had passed and the rest of them had all begun to return to their careers, carving them out into something new. Bill had informed them that he'd finally been making some headway on a new book since moving to Florida, Mike was doing his university coursework, Beverly had tentatively been working on a new collection, and he himself had had many a call about a new series of commissions on which he was working. But, alas, this Richie - our present-day Richie - didn't seem to be doing anything of the sort. Ben wondered how one could go from a compulsive joke-machine to someone who had made four whole jokes in the month he’d been in Nebraska. There was that first day, of course, when he had turned up out of the blue early in the morning, looking like he’d slept in a bush the night before. Then the jokes had flowed out of him at a steady pace, but there had been something so odd about it. The overly familiar incessant joking and the mess of stubble, bags under his eyes and tattered clothes. He’d wanted to ask what was wrong but he knew Richie well enough that asking him what was wrong was like asking a cat not to shit on your carpet. Richie would shut down, or worse yet, he’d leave and disappear for another two years. So, Ben had waited. He’d been patient, hoping that when Richie was ready, it’d spill out of him, and they’d all learn where he had been and what the hell was going on, but this had still not happened. No, Richie did not seem to be any closer to telling anyone anything. He seemed to simply wander around their house all day, a shadow of his former self.</p><p>Ben didn’t want to hurt him or pressure him, but he needed to know – for Richie’s sake – he needed to know. He decided then and there, mid-run at the asscrack of dawn, that he would talk to Bev about it when he got home. They’d sort something out.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Has he told you anything?” Ben takes a sip of his orange juice. He is sitting at the island bar in their kitchen, now back from his run. He wipes sweat from his brow with his forearm. Beverly is at the other end of the kitchen, her skin practically glowing in the morning light. She looks ethereal. Richie is not yet awake.</p><p> </p><p>“Richie? Not really. He was pretty upset about Mike and Bill, though.” Beverly places herself a large bowl of cereal down on the counter and sits opposite him.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p> </p><p>“It was like he was jealous of their relationship, maybe? He seemed pretty broken up about it. I tried to talk to him about it all and he just said that it was all too much for him – to go on pretending that everything’s normal and great when it’s not, that that’s why he had to get out of LA.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right. So, we still don’t know where he was for the past two years?”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly shakes her head, chewing thoughtfully on her Cheerio’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Damn.”</p><p> </p><p>Through a mouthful of cereal, Beverly speaks, “Do you think he said anything to them? Bill and Mike, I mean.”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh,” Ben hadn’t thought of that, “Maybe. We should talk to them today and ask. Do you reckon they’re back in Florida yet?”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly shrugs, “Last I hear they were somewhere in Tennessee, they could be back by now.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll shoot off a message to Mike now and see if they’re free later.” He stands up, downing the rest of his juice, scoots around the side of the table to plant a kiss gently on Bev’s head, and leaves for his shower, feeling better than before; feeling like he’d done something good.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Mike and Bill are at home when Ben rings. It’s mid-afternoon in Florida and, until 36 seconds ago when Ben rang, Bill had been asleep on the sofa. His head had been leant against the armrest and his feet had been stretched out over Mike’s lap. Mike had been reading. Bill had awoken at the sound of Mike’s ringtone and begun to slowly pull himself up into a sitting position on the couch. Bill rolled his neck and cringed against the pain. He had one hell of a fucking cramp in his neck from where he’d been lying so Ben’s news had better be damn important.</p><p> </p><p>Ben is worried, is all. He’s concerned about his friend. Bill sits and listens as Ben explains his qualms and Mike paces the room. The way Bill sees the situation is like this: in September 2016, after the events of Derry, Richie had returned home to LA. Then, he had summarily ignored his friends' calls, texts and emails for two years before turning up at Ben's house one morning. Now, he's acting weird as hell and no one knows what to do. Bill is worried about him. He has told Mike as much in the diner in St Joseph. But, despite himself, there's a small part of him that's well and truly pissed off with Richie Tozier. They'd all been there, hadn't they? They'd all lost Stan and Eddie, had they not? They'd all managed to pick up the pieces in some way and continue on. Sure, there wasn't some rule that meant they'd had to stay in touch, but did it need to be said? After everything, did he really need to lay down the law and tell everyone they had to talk? He didn't want to be the leader anymore.  What good had happened under his leadership? </p><p>No, he needed to stop thinking like that. It wasn't his fault. <em>IT</em> wasn't his fault. He needed to remember that. Whilst it had been Mike who had lightly suggested maybe therapy would be a good idea for him, it was Bill himself who had known it to be true. He had been so tired of carrying his grief with him. It had metastasised inside him, making him someone he didn't like. It had ruined his marriage and nearly his career. He didn't want to be that Bill Denbrough anymore. He wanted to be better. He wanted to be himself again. And yet, here he was wondering why Richie couldn't just carry on as they all had? As if it had been so easy for him; for any of them. As if everything was suddenly okay now.</p><p>He pushes these thoughts aside, but they itch at the back of his head. A deep-rooted itch at his crown that he can never quite scratch.</p><p> </p><p>It is Beverly’s suggestion of Patty Uris’ inclusion that pulls Bill back to the present.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, what? You’ve been speaking to Stan’s wife?”</p><p> </p><p>Mike looks over at where Bill is sitting, startled. This is how Bill realises that this was the first time he’d spoken aloud during their phone call.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Beverly’s voice is hesitant over the crackly phone lines, “We’d been writing but she requested we stop recently. I’m worried about her too. I think this could help her somehow.”</p><p> </p><p>Her revelation hangs in the air for an uncomfortable amount of time. Bill can’t believe that she had been talking to Patty and not mentioned it to any of them. He wonders if Ben knew, if he is up there in Nebraska, looking at her as incredulously as Bill is at the phone.</p><p> </p><p>Mike is the first to break the silence, “That sounds like a really nice idea, Bev. Like, uh… introducing Patty to a side of Stan that she didn’t have the chance to know.”</p><p> </p><p>Mike is such a saint. Bill’s stomach twinges at how Mike’s immediate reaction was that of joy and kindness, whilst his was that of suspicion. Mike really is too good for him, he thinks sadly.</p><p> </p><p>“So are you all okay with that?” Beverly’s voice is less hesitant now, buoyed by Mike’s reassurance.</p><p> </p><p>The group agree to include Patty. They spend the rest of the phone call outlining their plans to help Richie. Step one involves flying Patty up from Atlanta. Step two is their meeting to discuss the real plan. It’s hardly the most fleshed-out scheme they’ve ever come up with, but at least it’s a start.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Mike hadn’t mentioned the nightmares. He’d wanted to, oh boy had he wanted to, but he found that he simply couldn’t. He’d promised Richie not to mention them to anyone, but surely this situation changed that, didn’t it? He isn’t quite sure yet. He rationalises it to himself as protecting his friend; it is irrelevant to the situation at hand. He himself has been experiencing some pretty gnarly dreams, that doesn’t have to mean anything larger does it? He repeats this to himself, like a mantra. Not everything has to be part of some bigger picture. Sometimes things just happen. Not everything is like Derry.</p><p> </p><p>He just wishes he really believed it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter: <br/>The Body is a Blade - Japanese Breakfast</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bill makes a bad decision. Beverly contacts a friend.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Mike wakes up the next morning, Bill is nowhere to be seen. Mike pulls himself up out of the crooked double bed they have been sharing and pads into the kitchen, pouring himself a large glass of orange juice from the fridge. He had expected to find Bill here, hunched over his laptop, writing away; his head in the clouds of some distant land. But, no, Bill is not here either. Mike doesn't want to worry - Bill is entitled to space, after all. He tells himself not to think about it any further; that it's highly likely Bill has just gone for a walk or gone down the shops. Without thinking much more of it, Mike leaves the kitchen, heading for the shower and the rest of the day ahead of him. Unfortunately, this leaves him oblivious, for the time being, to the note Bill has left for him in the living room.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Bill feels sick. That's the closest approximation of his current state, anyway. He sits biting his nails, unaware of the disgusted looks the woman sitting next to him keeps shooting him. He slugs back the last of the whiskey in front of him and closes his eyes. He pushes his head back against the uncomfortable headrest and breathes deeply, trying his damnedest not to think. It doesn't seem to be working very well. God, he wishes he hadn't done this; that he wasn't so damn impulsive. He should have told Mike. He'd tell him when I got off the plane, he assured himself, that was the very first thing he'd do as soon as they landed. He'd ring Mike and apologise and explain everything. That was if Mike would pick up.  The situation was like this: Bill Denbrough had been unable to sleep the night previous, tossing and turning in his feelings over the phone call. His anger with Richie, his guilt; his responsibility. Everything had felt wrong. He needed to talk to Richie for himself, he needed to work out what the hell was going on. And so, in the early hours of the morning, he had slid quietly out of Mike's apartment, duffel bag in tow, and had jumped on the first flight from Tallahassee to Alliance, NE that he could get. He'd left a note for Mike, his heart in his throat, explaining as best as he could that he had to leave; that he was sorry. The words didn't feel real on the page before him - for a writer he was really terrible at finding the right words when he needed them. And now he sits on a cramped economy flight to Nebraska, his second trip there in less than a month, with his heart thrumming inside his ribcage and his stomach tying itself in knots. He is still hours away from landing. He wishes he’d told Mike.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Beverly is writing to Patty again. She is sitting in her study, one hand tangled up into her hair, and the other drumming her pen against the desk. She wants Patty to know that she’s sorry for any harm caused, that she still thinks of her as her friend; that she understands if she doesn’t reply. Beverly wants to meet her. They’ve been exchanging letters for two years, enough that Beverly knows her hobbies and her job and the snarky wit that made Stanley fall so deeply in love with her. Yet, they’ve never even met. Stan’s funeral had taken place whilst they were all still in Derry and since then there’d somehow never been the perfect opportunity to invite your dead childhood friend’s widow to come and visit. At the very least now she had some sort of excuse, even though she wasn’t sure of the best way to say ‘<em>hey, come to Nebraska to hang out with some people you’ve never met, we were friends with your husband thirty years ago</em>!’. She wants to explain everything to Patty properly and she isn’t quite sure how except in person. She just has to trust that Patty will trust her in coming all the way out here first.</p><p>By the time Beverly has finished the letter, it is three A4 pages of loopy scrawl, front and back. She seals it in an envelope and copies Patty’s address onto it. She smiles as she presses a stamp into the top corner, thinking of Stan. “I miss you,” she says aloud to the empty room; to Stan. Patty had sent photos of him as an adult – from their wedding, from parties, candids of him around the house – Bev had studied his face, tracing all his features, determined to burn them into her mind. There was one particular photograph of him that she liked the most: he was lying down in a park, propped up on one elbow. He was laughing at something off-camera and his curly hair had fallen into his eyes. He had looked so carefree and happy, so different from the careful and measured boy she had known. Her heart broke that she had never got to know this man. She’d examined the photo closer and closer until it was just a blur of colour before her. She marvelled at how he managed to look so much like teenage Stanley and yet not at all – the way ageing could transform a face and yet there was still the spirit of Stan there. He had been careful and precise and cautious, yes, but there had also been something wild about him that she had loved. She could see it in his eyes in the photograph, the same look she’d seen when they’d played in the quarry, and built the clubhouse, and flooded the barrens with their dam. The photo was of Stan – the Stan she had known – just as much as it was of the man he would become.</p><p>She looks at this photo now and swears she can feel his presence. She is about to move from her desk when a thought strikes her. She grabs a post-it note from a drawer and writes a short message on it: <em>I want to know him and I know you do too. Please come</em>. She unpins the photo from her corkboard and gently sticks the note to the back of it before carefully unpeeling the envelope and placing both inside.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Whilst Bill sits on a plane to Nebraska, Mike worries, and Beverly writes, Ben is thinking. He is thinking of what the hell they're meant to be doing. They'd all discussed being worried about Richie and needing to do something about it, but what exactly? If Richie didn't want to talk to them what could they do about it? The first thing they'd agreed on their agenda was to get Patty up here - fine, Bev was working on that now. And then? As far as they'd got was agreeing to meet up but when and where was that meant to be? Maybe they should all go down to Florida,</p><p>he thinks, it doesn't seem fair for Mike and Bill to keep having to come all the way up here for them, particularly when they'd only just left recently and Mike had his university work down there. He stares at the paper in front of him entitled HOW TO HELP RICHIE. It reads as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>INVITE PATTY TO JOIN</li>
<li>MEET UP TO ORGANISE</li>
</ol><p>Ben draws an arrow away from the second bullet point, adding an "IN FLORIDA??" amendment alongside it. Well, that was something. He is still not any clearer on a</p><p>plan. What exactly could they do, host an intervention? And say what? "Richie, we want to know where you were for the last two years!". So Richie would freak out and leave them again and then who knows if he'd come back next time. Ben chews on the end of his pencil. They all needed to be together and they all needed to talk to him. Maybe they couldn't make him talk but perhaps they could make him listen. Would Patty be able to help in any way? Ben's unsure what she does for a living - he makes a mental note to ask Bev later. Oh, maybe that's it! Maybe if - assuming she agrees to it - Patty spoke about losing Stan, that could help Richie somehow? Ben knew that they'd all lost Eddie, just as they'd all lost Stan, but the specific and personal pain of losing the person you were in love with was different to losing a dear friend; after all, Ben wasn't too oblivious to know how Richie had felt about Eddie. He'd seen it when Richie had gently kissed Eddie's cheek goodbye, when he'd screamed that broken and desperate cry as they'd had to drag him out of the house on Neibolt Street; when he'd sobbed as they all held him in the quarry. Ben knew. He knew what heartbreak looked like. Ben smiles sadly at the thought. Richie had lost the man he loved and it had been too much for him - had they all been so selfish as to continue on with their lives without him? His heart aches for his friend. The start of a plan begins to form in his head and he returns to the page before him, his pencil scratching across the paper as the words flow out of him. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s mid-afternoon when Bill turns up on Ben and Beverly’s doorstep. Beverly answers the door, her face dropping into a picture of shock.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh my God, Bill! Jesus Christ!” Beverly wraps him into a bearhug before pushing him back, shoving his shoulder lightly.</p><p>“Don’t sound so pleased to see me.” He attempts a smirk but it feels strained. He tries to smile at his friend but finds he can’t currently bring himself to.</p><p>Beverly thwacks his arm, “You’ve had us all worried! Mike especially! Ben’s on the phone to him right now trying to talk him down from putting out a missing person’s report about you!”</p><p>Bill drops his duffel bag at the door and kicks his shoes off. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>"'I'm sorry'? What the hell were you thinking?" Her face is red – almost as red as her hair, Bill thinks.</p><p> </p><p>Bill thinks of the myriad of lies he could offer; the various tales he could weave. He looks into Beverly’s clear eyes and he knows that she knows him too damn well for any of that. Instead, he opts for the truth: “I needed to see Richie.”</p><p>The frustrated crease drops out of Beverly’s brow; confusion flashes across her face. Her eyes grow wide with something reminiscent of revelation before falling to the ground, landing somewhere near Bill’s beat-up duffel.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>Bill is surprised, he’d been expecting much more of an admonishment. As if reading his thoughts Beverly speaks again, “You’re not getting off lightly, though. You’ve got Ben and Mike to contend with yet.”</p><p> </p><p>She smiles at him then, and it fills Bill with a much longed-for reassuring warmth, ironing out the concertina of panic that had been steadfast in his chest since the night before.</p><p>“Thanks, Bev.” He smiles back, his muscles twitching; his eyes wet.</p><p> </p><p>She takes his hand and squeezes it gently, before using it to direct him into the kitchen area. He follows her wordlessly, allowing her to guide him to a stall near the worktop island. He sits down and now that the grip of guilt and sickness and panic has loosened, tiredness hits him like a tonne of bricks. He slumps into the chair gratefully, propping his head up on the counter with one arm. Exhaustion consumes him. Beverly plops a mug of warm coffee in front of him. It smells like oak and wholemeal savoury biscuits. Bill inhales the steam deeply and feels it run through him. He lets out a long sigh. His teeth chatter against the warmth as he brings that mug to his face. Bev places a friendly hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“Ben made it about twenty minutes before you arrived,” She tilts her head towards the mug, “must have known you were coming.”</p><p> </p><p>As if summoned by mention of his name, Ben appears in the doorway, his eyes wide with disbelief. His hair is a mess.</p><p>“Bill?!”</p><p>“Hey, man.” Bill offers his friend a weak smile.</p><p>“What the hell is going on? Oh, man, I gotta go call Mike.” Ben paces in the doorway, confused as to what to do first.<br/>
<br/>
“No!” Bill’s exclamation is too quick and too loud. Ben stops pacing, turning to look at his friend. Bill can feel both Beverly’s and Ben’s eyes on him. The panic is back in his chest.  </p><p>“Is everything alright?” Bev removes her hand from Bill’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, sorry. Everything is fine. I’ll talk to him. Thanks though, Ben.”</p><p>“No worries,” Ben shoots a concerned look at Bev, “We’ll leave you to it.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben claps Bill on the back chummily before heading out of the room with Beverly.  He returns to his study and amends his agenda. In large capital letters at the bottom of the page, he adds “WORK OUT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH BILL”.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter: <br/>A Pearl - Mitski</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Patty arrives. Mike questions his lie.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s been three days since Bill arrived. Ben is sitting up in his and Beverly’s bed, a book propped up against his knee; his reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. Beverly appears in the ensuite doorway, her hair pulled back away from her face, absentmindedly massaging moisturiser into her hands.</p><p> </p><p>“Has Bill spoken to you at all?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not since he arrived, now that you mention it.” Ben watches her over his glasses as she crosses the room and climbs into bed next to him.</p><p>“I could swear him and Richie are avoiding us. I’ve barely seen either of them in days.”</p><p>Ben drops his book into his lap, “Huh. How did that happen?”</p><p>Beverly hums next to him, “I just want to know when our house turned into a home for broken men.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben chuckles, “I love it when you call it ‘our’ house.” He looks at her over the top of his clunkily-framed blue reading glasses. They are some of the most hideous glasses Bev has seen her life – she once described them to her friend Kay as the most gauche pair of glasses you could see this side of Chicago – but she adores seeing him in them.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly smiles at him, pressing a kiss to his cheek, feeling his stubble against her lips.</p><p>She runs a hand across his cheek, feeling the bristle move gently beneath her fingertips. His beard is flecked with grey – some darker, some silvery white. Beverly loves looking at his greying beard and hair; there’s something so comforting and calming about it.</p><p>“You need to shave.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll do it before Patty arrives, I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly’s hand drops from his face. The air between them suddenly feels cold. Patty is arriving soon. She’d replied to Beverly’s letter – much to her astonishment – simply saying that she would come and visit. That was all the letter had said. No details as to why she had wanted to cut contact, and no reasons as to why she agreed to come and stay with these near-strangers. Beverly thinks of the photograph of Stan she’d tucked into the envelope; so full of life and love. Patty must have taken that. Stupidly, this is the first time this thought has occurred to Beverly. She’s suddenly not sure she can face her arriving, looking at her every day and knowing that there’s a Stanley-shaped hole missing in all their lives. She knows it’s not her fault but there’s still a twinge of guilt there, she’d seen it; somehow, she should have known. Patty was Stan’s wife. Patty deserves to know. The same Patty who carries her secret.</p><p>“There’s actually something I need to tell you before Patty arrives. I should have told you before, but I…” She trails off.</p><p> </p><p>Ben, sensing the severity of the oncoming revelation, removes his glasses, folds down the corner of the page he’d been reading in his book and settles both down on the bedside table next to him. He turns his body so that he is fully facing her, his legs crossed; his hands loose in his lap, reading to catch hers if she needs him. He smiles at her, encouraging her to continue.</p><p> </p><p>“About three months ago…” Beverly wrings her hands in front of her nervously, Ben wishes he could reach out and hold them still to reassure her but he doesn’t want to cross a boundary for her. He sits calmly as she continues, “I missed a period. I took a pregnancy test and it was positive and I freaked out. And then I freaked out about freaking out. I should have told you and I wanted to, but I was so scared of… I don’t know, <em>everything</em>, I guess. I didn’t know what to do and then – well, then I started bleeding. It was over before I even really knew what was happening.”</p><p> </p><p>“Beverly, I…”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have, I was just scared and then it was over and… I should have told you. I’m so sorry, Ben.” She fumbles with her hands, pulling distractedly at a loose thread in one of her socks.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Beverly looks up at him for the first time then, sure she must have misheard him. The look on her face breaks Ben’s heart in two.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay.” He slowly reaches a hand out, gently taking one of hers in his. Her hand disappears underneath his. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone.”</p><p>Beverly visibly swallows, pink blotches appearing high on her cheekbones. Her eyes sparkle with tears, “You’re not mad at me?”</p><p> </p><p>“I could never be.”</p><p> </p><p>His words break a dam inside Beverly and she starts sobbing, Ben pulls her into an embrace, stroking her hair gently. He kisses the side of her head. A tear drips down Ben’s face and off the end of his nose, landing silently on the bedsheet behind Bev.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you, Beverly.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>When Patty does arrive Ben is out jogging. Interestingly, it is actually Bill that opens the door – Beverly is busy in her study and Richie is still sleeping.</p><p> </p><p>Patricia Uris’ dark curly hair is tied away in a plait that is slung over one shoulder. She wears blue jeans and an oversized cardigan. Her eyes are large and cautious-looking. She is tall, taller than him, perhaps. Bill immediately knows who she is despite never have seen a photograph of her. He himself is wearing an ill-fitting pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt he’s had since college. He must look a state. </p><p> </p><p>“Um, I’m looking for Beverly Marsh.” Patty looks out beyond him, into the hallway, clearly unsure if she has the right house.</p><p>“She’s in her office right now. I’m--“</p><p> </p><p>“Oh! You’re William Denbrough.” Patty looks at him as if noticing him for the first time, her face a picture of shock. Pink spots appear on her cheeks, demonstrating her embarrassment.</p><p> </p><p>Bill chuckles, “Bill’s fine,” he extends a hand to her and they shake in greeting, “It’s nice to finally meet you, Patty.”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she enters the hallway, wheeling her suitcase carefully along behind her, “Gosh, Stan had all of your books.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill’s face greys in pallor, “Stan was a good man.” He says as he knows not what else to say.</p><p> </p><p>“He was.” Patty agrees. She offers a sad half-smile.</p><p> </p><p>An awkward silence hangs between them as Bill regrets his words and is unsure what to say next. The silence expands between them until it fills the entire hallway pushing them both up against the walls; suffocating them. Bill swears he can even hear the old grandfather clock upstairs ticking in the heavy quiet. He fiddles with the cuffs on his sweatshirt – they’re frayed and holey from him fidgeting with them over the years. The left cuff is frayed worse than the right one, a mess of navy-blue thread barely holding it together. His thumb pokes through one of the larger holes in it, widening the space further. The cotton is soggy from him chewing on it – a terrible habit he’d picked up when writing his first-ever novel all those years ago, one he had thought he was over until recently.</p><p> </p><p>Patty, clearly as aware as him of the dead air, speaks quickly. This would be okay if it were not that at the exact same moment Bill decides to speak, too.</p><p> </p><p>Bill: “So, what do you do for a living?”</p><p>Patty: “Should I go and find Beverly?”</p><p> </p><p>The words clash in a cacophony of rushed speech and neither person quite hears exactly what the other said. Bill grins madly, painfully aware of how ridiculous this situation suddenly is.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry.” He says quickly; the only thing he can think of.</p><p> </p><p>Patty smiles at him and it’s a warm and understanding smile; one that says everything will be okay. Bill notices her kind eyes, swamped by dark circles and abruptly realises that she must be exhausted after her flight from Atlanta.</p><p>His brain kicks into gear and he practically stumbles over himself trying to do too many things at once.</p><p> </p><p>“The living room is down the hall if you want to sit down; just leave your bag here. I’ll tell Bev you’re here.”</p><p> </p><p>He guides her to the living room and she sinks down into the large leather couch, practically disappearing into it, visibly relieved at being off her feet. He raps his knuckles nervously on the doorframe before travelling off down the hall to Bev’s office. An odd dread fills him over the thought of speaking to Beverly. He distractedly folds his sweatshirt cuffs inwards, out of sight. He tells himself that maybe if he’s quick to notify her of Patty’s presence she’ll forget to ask him where he’s been hiding. He doubts that somehow.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s April 9th 2019. Mike Hanlon knows this because he checks his calendar every morning. It’s been one week. One week since he woke up to find Bill gone. One week since he found Bill’s note on the coffee table in the living room. “I have to go back to Nebraska. I need to speak to Richie about something.” Those were the words scratched across the yellow legal pad scrap that had been left for him. Those fifteen words, and then, at the bottom of the scrap, as if added as an afterthought: “I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Those were the last words Mike had received from Bill. He’d tried to call him for the first couple of days but after twenty calls that went straight to voicemail he’d simply given up. There was only so much he could take. Mike wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Bill had seemed fine before; he’d even expressed his own concern over Richie at that diner. But, something about that call the night before he’d left had seemed off. Bill had barely spoken. Mike thinks about his admission of information – no, his <em>lie</em>, he thinks bitterly - in that phone call. He has thought about it every day since Bill left. Regret shrouds his normally sunny disposition. He needs to talk to the others - he’d tried to call Richie to discuss his nightmares, but, alas, no answer. He’d talked to Ben who had confirmed Bill’s presence in his house; who had told him everything was okay. Really, Mike wanted to be out there with everyone - but, if Bill had left without him he obviously didn’t want Mike there. Although, maybe that was precisely why he <em>should </em>go. He didn’t know what to do anymore. Mike felt as if his whole life had stopped making sense when he’d been inaugurated into the Losers Club all those years ago. He’d assumed that uncertainty would die with It but it hadn’t. Maybe, maybe, he thought, that was just <em>life</em>. Maybe life wasn’t meant to make sense. Mike laughs at the cliché of this thought. His father would have rolled his eyes hard if he’d ever heard Mike say something like that. Who cares if life made sense or not?</p><p> </p><p>He sits down on his sofa in the living room. Bill’s note still sits untouched on the coffee table. He should have moved it or thrown it away but he hasn’t found himself the motivation to as of yet. He flicks on the TV and channel hops until he comes across something to watch – a repeat of some 1990s episode of <em>Law &amp; Order. </em>Sam Waterston stands in the courtroom arguing with the judge. Mike closes his eyes against the colour and noise. He knows he should do something about all of this but he’s unsure what exactly he can do from Florida. He could call Bev or Ben and tell them about his and Richie’s nightmares, he supposes. If both of them have been having these dreams then that has to mean something, doesn’t it? He thinks about all those nights ago, pacing the stretch of the motel bathroom, listening intently to Richie talk about the intensity of his nightmare – his certainty that there was something there, something was coming; how he’d vomited when he’d woken up – whilst Bill slept on in the next room. He wonders if it’s possible that they’d all been having these dreams and that no one else had mentioned it yet. What about Beverly? She’d been caught in the deadlights; she’d had dreams of them all dying before they went back to Derry. If there was anyone else in the group having these dreams it had to be her. Maybe it only affected people caught in the deadlights – like Richie, like Beverly, like… Bill. Bill had been caught in the deadlights. He’d forgotten that. If Bill had been having nightmares wouldn’t he have noticed by now? He knows that Bill had been aware of his. It can’t be the deadlights, he himself hadn’t been caught in them. No, it can’t have been. Something else, though – something other? He knows it can’t be It. It is dead, Mike knows that with more certainty than he has ever known anything in his life. So, what else – what else was there? The Turtle?</p><p>Oh, God. He doesn’t know. His thoughts have stopped making sense to him. Mike opens his eyes and shakes his head as if shaking water out of his ears. He had thought this was all over. Goddammit, he had wanted this to all be over.</p><p> </p><p>Mike slumps back into the couch, trying to clear his brain; trying to not think of anything at all. He looks at the TV until his eyes defocus, Sam Waterston’s courtroom drama another world away. His glazed eyes fall on the fruit bowl left on the coffee table. His stomach rumbles and Mike suddenly realizes he hasn’t eaten breakfast yet today. He blinks himself back into the room and grabs an apple from the bowl. He rubs it clean on his t-shirt and takes a large bite. The juice is sweet and sour, his cheeks sucking in on reflex. The juice trickles down his chin and he wipes it away with the back of his free hand. The apple flesh has already turned to slush in his mouth. His tongue fizzes, the numbing reaction of eating something extremely sour. The familiar sensation calms him at first, except it does not subside. It grows until Mike feels as if the entire inside of his mouth is burning hot; coated in acid or something else horrific. He spits the apple sludge out messily onto the coffee table. It sits in an ugly brown puddle on the cool oak surface, seemingly fizzing and hissing and spitting away. Mike turns his vision toward the rest of the apple, still clutched in his left hand. The skin is a deep wine red and the section of flesh showing through his bite mark shines a mocking, pristine white.</p><p>Something is very wrong here. Calling won’t quite cut it, he decides. He needs to go to Nebraska. He’s telling them about the nightmares whether Richie likes it or not.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter: <br/>Feel - Robbie Williams</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Richie has a dream.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Richie is dreaming again.  He’s in a room he doesn’t recognise. He looks around it, trying to place himself. He’s unsure. There’s a door, though. That must be important, he thinks. He reaches for the handle but it’s locked. He pumps the handle, rattling the door on its hinges. It’s suddenly vitally important that he opens this goddamn door. There’s something behind him. He’s certain that if he turns around, if he goes back it will get him. He hammers at the door desperately. He can feel whatever is behind him getting closer. He’s panicking, his hands are slick with sweat. They keep slipping off the door handle. He swears, trying to wipe them dry on his jeans but every time more sweat pops up like a fountain. He grabs at the handle, dying for purchase. Still, nothing. He pounds at the door, the solid oak mocking him, impenetrable. He’s frantic, now slamming his shoulder into the door, trying to knock it from its hinges. Whatever is behind him is so close now. So close now. Oh, God, it’s so close. He slams his shoulder into the door for the umpteenth time and it suddenly gives way beneath him. He drops clumsily to the floor, landing squarely on his front. His glasses are broken. He stumbles back onto his feet. He’s still not sure where is, but now the – whatever it was – isn’t after him anymore.</p><p>He looks around.</p><p> </p><p>There’s some faceless body in the distance that he can’t quite see. It’s someone he loves. No, it’s someone he used to love – or maybe it’s someone he hates? He’s not sure. Someone he used to hate? Time spins around him in an endless loop – there is no beginning and no end, no past, no future; only now. Whatever now is.</p><p>A voice churns up out of nowhere, Richie thinks it’s coming from the faceless person at first before he notices it can’t be; it’s seemingly echoing over a loudspeaker somewhere. The bass vibrates through Richie’s bones, making him feel dizzy.</p><p> </p><p>“YOU ARE LISTENING TO KLAD, LOS ANGELES’ BEST AND BIGGEST R-R-R-ROCK RADIO STA- STA- STATION. I’M YOUR HOST FOR THE NEXT FOUR HOURS, RRRRRRRRRICH ‘RECORDS’ TOZIER, MAN OF A THOUSAND VOICES. THAT’S RIGHT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE ONE AND ONLY RICHARD TOZIER! AREN’T I, RICHIE? OR MAYBE I’M NOT? MAYBE THIS ISN’T THE RIGHT ONE?”</p><p> </p><p>Richie stares, transfixed by the faceless shape before him. The voice echoes around him – his voice, he thinks. He knows it is him somehow, and yet it doesn’t sound anything like him at all. He’s confused; he feels sick. The voice continues to bound through the void around him. It seems to be growing louder and louder to an almost deafening degree.</p><p> </p><p>“LET’S GET STARTED WITH OUR FIRST SONG OF THE NIGHT, SHALL WE? HOW ABOUT A CLASSIC, HUH, RICHIE? HOW ABOUT A CLASSIC JUST FOR YOU? HOW ABOUT ONE JUST FOR YOU, MY FUNNY FRIEND? HERE’S “HHHHHHHYENA” BY THE EDITORS…”</p><p> </p><p>The music curls through the space, wrapping Richie inside it. It engulfs him, suffocating him.</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Call me and tell me you care….</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>Richie can practically feel his eardrums rattling. He falls to the ground, gripping helplessly at his ears, willing it to stop. <em>SHUT UP, </em>he screams but no sound comes out.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>But don’t you understand?</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>The hunger makes the man, </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>With all the lies in front of us,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>The world looks so ridiculous to me…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  
</p><p>He screams and screams. His hands are wet with blood. Blood trickling from his ears; the blood dripping from his eyes. There is blood on his glasses. No, it’s not his blood. No, it’s not. The blood is on his glasses, on his hands; on his shirt. The shirt he had burnt. The clothes he had to throw away.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me hyena,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me hyena!</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me hyena, </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me now… </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    
  </p>
</blockquote><p>He is going to be sick. He rams his eyes shut; shut against the noise. He begs it to stop but he knows it won’t. The song pulsates, burning through his head; blocking Richie’s thoughts. There is nothing but the music. <em>SHUT UP! </em>He screams urgently but to no avail, his voice has gone.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>I love you, I love my black eye…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>The voice – his voice - is back, interrupting the song. Panic floods through him. Why won’t it stop?</p><p> “WHAT A CLASSIC, AM I RIGHT, RICHIE?”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>There’s history in a scar…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  
</p><p>“THIS IS FUN, ISN’T IT?”</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>The world looks so ridiculous to me…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  
</p><p>“WE LOVE ROCK N ROLL, YEAH!”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me hyena…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  
</p><p>“NOW THAT’S FUNNY! WE LIKE JOKES!”</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me hyena…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>“YOU TELL JOKES, DON’T YOU? TELL ME A JOKE! COME ON PUPPET BOY, TELL ME A JOKE!”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me hyena…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>“I HAVE A JOKE FOR YOU, IT’S ABOUT A SAD MAN WHO THINKS HE’S FUNNY…”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>So laugh with me now!</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>“WHAT A CLASSIC! WHAT IS IT MARTY MCFLY SAID? ‘<em>THIS IS AN OLDIE… AT LEAST WHERE I COME FROM, ANYWAY’ </em>OR… NO, MAYBE THAT’S NOT RIGHT? MAYBE IT’S THE OTHER WAY AROUND?”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Laugh with me now…</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>“’<em>I GUESS YOU GUYS AREN’T READY FOR THAT, YET. BUT YOUR KIDS ARE GONNA LOVE IT.’ THAT MARTY MCFLY WAS QUITE A GUY, HUH? I KNOW YOU DEFINITELY THOUGHT SO. I KNOW YOU. I KNOW EVERYTHING YOU KNOW.”</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>The music stops. Richie breathes raggedly. Everything has gone. Everything has disappeared around him. He’s not even in the void anymore, there’s just nothing. Endless nothingness. The silence rings in his ears after the din of the music. He thinks he might be deaf. He collapses, curling himself into the foetal position. He thinks he might pass out but instead he just vomits. Sick orange and yellow puke that comes up out his nose; burning his throat. He wants this to be over. He wants everything to be over. It must all be over. He wants it to be over.</p><p> </p><p>A hand touches his shoulder gently. Richie jerks away from it but there it is again, now gently brushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead. Richie opens his eyes blearily and realises it is the faceless person. The one who was watching him before. The one who he had felt in his other dreams – always there, always watching, just out of reach. His vision is blurry and distorted, he can only see a vague shape of the person but he senses that he knows them. The person caresses his cheek ever so gently, so softly, and Richie realises this is not a malevolent entity, it never has been. It’s protecting him. He blinks, trying to focus his vision but to no ends – his glasses are gone, lost somewhere along the way. He isn’t in the void or the nothingness anymore, he’s somewhere else entirely, somewhere calm and warm and light. He feels buoyant. He is weightless. He breathes a deep sigh of relief, suddenly aware that he can in fact breathe normally again. The hand is on his forehead again and Richie can feel it delivering warmth to him. He feels good. He feels safe. The person’s hand is still on his forehead and Richie is distantly aware of them talking to him, except he can’t hear the words. He can see the person’s mouth moving but no words are coming. He tries to tell the person this but finds he can’t even open his own mouth. He’s too relaxed. He stares dazedly up at the person before him, their face moving closer to his, their mouth still moving. Richie thinks they must really want to tell him something, but damn if it’s not working. He laughs. He’s not sure why. He lays there in the white, feeling nothing. The person’s hands are on his shoulders now, they shake him as if trying to get his attention. Richie laughs again. <em>I can’t see without my glasses</em>. He grins stupidly. <em>My glasses, my glasses! </em>It’s a funny joke, isn’t it? The person is shaking him more and more hurriedly, desperately trying to tell him something but Richie still can’t hear them. In fact, he can barely see them now either. He’s unsure if his vision is getting worse or if the person is somehow turning invisible. He’s still being shaken, more and more frantically. He wants to tell the person to stop, that he’s too tired, but he can’t be bothered.</p><p> </p><p>He’s being shaken, shaken, shaken, shaken, shaken, shaken, shaken, shaken…</p><p> </p><p>He falls through the floor. He’s falling, his stomach left far behind, his heart in his throat. He’s falling and the ground is getting closer and closer oh god it’s getting closer oh god it’s nearly here he can practically touch it oh god the ground he’s going to hit it hard he’s going to hit it he’s going to-</p><p> </p><p>Richie wakes up. His sheets are wet with sweat and vomit. His chest is pounding.</p><p><em>Fuck this</em>, he thinks.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter: <br/>Hyena - Editors</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The group have a talk.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time rather seems to be standing still in the Hanscom-Marsh household. The gang’s all here and yet still no conversation has happened, no plans have been out in motion. It seems as if everyone has decided to avoid each other as best possible – which would seem impossible in a house not meant to live six people, and yet! Beverly is just about nearly boiling point as if it hadn’t been enough with just Richie moping around their home, now there are three extra people to contend with. Patty, at least, made pleasant small talk with her and Ben and occasionally joined the, for meals, even if they were yet to broach the <em>main</em> issue; Mike had made some vague attempt at explaining his presence when he had arrived, waved away by a much more elusive “I’ll explain later”, and that had been the last time Beverly had seen him. At least with Mike, Beverly knew that he likely wasn’t intentionally ignoring her, so much as he was holed up somewhere buried beneath mountains of books and notes. Bill, meanwhile, was definitely going out of his way not to interact with her – or anyone – she knew that, and she hadn’t so much as seen Richie in three whole days.</p><p> </p><p>The moment she decides that she has truly had enough and everyone is going to talk about this, goddammit, starts normally enough. Beverly is in the kitchen, making herself a mug of tea, intending to take it back to her office – with a detour via Ben’s workspace to check-in – and spend the rest of the afternoon working. This has become a habit in the past few months, a nice way to break up her day. She rather enjoys it, making herself a warm, comforting drink and chatting to Ben. It fuels her. Instead, after boiling the kettle and getting her favourite mug ready, she opens the cupboard to find that there is no tea left. There had been four tea bags left yesterday when she had checked. Someone had drunk it. She wouldn’t normally mind – what’s mine is yours, etc.- but to do so without asking, without apologising for using it all up, or replacing it? Somehow, this is the final of final straws. She hits the fucking ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>Twenty minutes later she has rounded everyone up, practically kicking Richie down the hallway at one point, until they are all sitting, glumly, in the brightly-coloured living room. Bill stares at the ceiling, Richie barely looks present; Mike just looks tired. Patty looks uncomfortable, and Beverly feels bad for her – she hadn’t meant to shout at her too but she’d been on a roll. Ben is the only one who is looking directly at her as she stands in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips, her hair frantic around her – a red halo.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay. Now, I don’t know what the hell is going on with you all, but I am sick of this! Everyone is going to talk to each other now dammit or I swear I’ll kick you all out of my house!”</p><p> </p><p>Bev glares along the line of her friends, waiting for reactions. There are none, apparently. Although, she could have sworn she saw the slightest of smirks from Richie. That, or maybe she’d just wished it.</p><p> </p><p>“Bill,” she directs her attention towards him, “you’re first.”</p><p>“What? Why me?” The ceiling suddenly seems less interesting to Bill as he stares at her incredulously – a child being picked on by the teacher in class. He doesn’t have the answer, he wasn’t listening, please go easy on him! He’s already had too many detentions this term!</p><p> </p><p>“Why not you? Now, talk.”</p><p>She sits down, not breaking her eye-contact with him. She is a machine when she wants to be.</p><p> </p><p>He relents.</p><p>Bill stands up, although he’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because he’s going to talk and people always stand up when they have important things to say, don’t they? He’s not sure where to start.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t even know what you want me to say, Bev.” He sighs, looking put-upon.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, for God’s sake! Sit down, I’ll start.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill follows orders.</p><p> </p><p>“So! All of you are staying in our house – which is fine – except for the fact that something is obviously going on and no one seems to want to talk about it! Richie, you arrived first and thank God, it was great to see you again. But, you disappeared for two years with no explanation! You said you weren’t ready to talk about it, and that’s fine, I respect that, but it’s been months now. You’re acting really weird, and we’re worried about you. We’re all worried about you. You’re our friend!</p><p>“And then, you!” Beverly points at Bill, accusingly “You turn up out of the blue next and won’t even talk to me. What the hell is that about? You just ran away without telling Mike anything and then you just show up at our door? You can’t even look at him! What is going on with you?</p><p>“Mike and Patty, you guys haven’t done anything wrong, and I am sorry that I am still shouting!”</p><p> </p><p>She slumps back into her seat, depleted. Silence hangs in the air.</p><p> </p><p>Bill clears his throat, keeping his seat this time, “I’m sorry, Bev. And I’m sorry Mike, I really am. I’m an idiot, you guys know that. I don’t <em>think</em>; I just do.” He looks at Mike, and Mike looks back, Bill doesn’t think he deserves his attention, “I’m such an asshole. I flew out here because I needed to talk to Richie and I haven’t even been able to do that.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Richie is sitting in a large leather armchair in the corner. He looks incredibly uncomfortable. “What did you need to talk to me about? What the hell is going on?”</p><p> </p><p>Bill scoffs, annoyed “I don’t think you get to ask that.”</p><p>Richie looks confused, “Is this an intervention or something?”</p><p>Bill rolls his eyes dramatically and opens his mouth to argue back when Mike abruptly interrupts, “It’s about your dreams, Richie.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mike…”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
“I know, I promised I wouldn’t say anything – and I didn’t! But, look where that got us! We’re all just sitting here saying nothing!” Now it’s the turn for the rest of the group to look confused – especially Patty who looks rather like someone has dropped her off on an alien planet with no translator.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Rich.” Mike pinches the bridge of his nose, scrunching up his eyes, he exhales a slow and measured breath, “Richie called me the night Bill and I left here. He’d had a nightmare – a bad, horrible, vivid one. So bad that he threw up after.” Beverly turns sheet white, “I promised I wouldn’t say anything because he didn’t want to freak you guys out. The truth is, I’ve been having them too. The nightmares. I think Richie told me about his because I’d mentioned mine to him, right?” Richie nods in agreement, “Well, mine clearly weren’t as bad. I barely remember them when I wake up, but I know how scared I am in them. At first, I thought it was just my brain processing everything that happened – an outlet for the trauma if you like – but, I think it might be more than that. I don’t know what it is. I don’t think it’s evil but I think it’s… something. And, God do I hope I’m wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben: “But it can’t be <em>It</em>. It’s dead.”</p><p> </p><p>Patty is sitting in the other armchair, opposite Richie and nearest to the hearth. She looks around the room, her heart in her throat. She’s beginning to wish she’d never come here; that she’d never responded to Beverly’s first letter. She’s been observing the situation quietly until now, assuming it didn’t involve and she’d just got swept along with the tide of Beverly’s post-lunchtime tirade. But Mike’s admission has turned her blood cold, her skin is covered in goosebumps. She knots her hands together in an attempt to stop their shaking. And, near breathlessly, she whispers out into the room one word, not conscious that she had spoken it aloud: “Nightmares?”</p><p>They were good people who listened and cared, but it couldn’t be said that there weren’t times when they were all so wrapped up in themselves as a group that other people seemed to stop existing. Mike continues on, not having heard her; no one had. “I know. I know it is. It’s not that, it’s something else. It’s something… <em>else</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben is sharing a sofa with Beverly. He looks like he might cry, he drops his head into his hands, mussing up his hair “Not again. Oh, please, God, not this again.” He whispers.</p><p>Beverly looks like she’s going to be sick.</p><p>“Bev?” Mike kneels in front of her, concerned, “Are you alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, that’s not what I was talking about!” Bill interrupts again, angry. He stands up, defiant.</p><p>“Well then, what <em>were</em> you talking about?” The spite drips from Mike’s words as he glares at Bill.</p><p> </p><p>“I am talking about how Richie is a selfish asshole!”</p><p>Mike lets out a short laugh.</p><p>Richie: “Can everyone stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?”</p><p>Mike: “We were talking about something important, Bill.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, listen to me! I’m annoyed, okay, man? I just don’t understand why Richie gets to do this! Why does he get to be the one that disappears for two whole years with zero explanation and then comes back and fucks everything up?” Bill paces the room as he walks, an angry companion to Ben and Beverly’s man-in-motion floor lamp. He kicks up their cow-skin rug as he walks and Beverly quietly hopes that he will trip over it and defuse the situation. He doesn’t.</p><p>“I don’t get it! Why does Richie get to act like he’s the only one here dealing with grief? We all lost them, too. We all lost Stan and Eddie! I mean, I lost Georgie, too! My little brother! Do you even remember that, huh, Rich? He was six years old! You think I don’t still carry that fucking grief with me? Why do you get to act like you have the monopoly on grief?”</p><p> </p><p>Ben, quietly from the sofa, his voice strained: “Bill, come on, man.”</p><p> </p><p>“No. No! It’s not fair! I’m pissed off! Why does Richie get to go around acting like he’s the only person in the world that’s lost someone? Why does he get to act like he’s the only one who misses Stan? Who misses Eddie? Who still thinks about seeing Eddie die every damn day?”</p><p> </p><p>“BECAUSE I WAS IN LOVE WITH HIM!” This erupts out of Richie in a roar. Silencing the room; silencing Bill. Richie’s face is bright red, his breathing ragged, his admission had burst out of him like compressed air. Bill stands, frozen.</p><p> </p><p>“Because I was in love with him, alright? Are you fucking happy now, Bill?” Richie mumbles this, clearly suddenly aware of all eyes in the room being on him. He drops his head and stares at his feet. Beverly wonders if this is perhaps the first time Richie has ever said those words aloud. She had known, she thinks they had all known – except Bill, clearly, and Patty as well, she supposes. She had seen his face when Ben and Mike had had to drag him away from Eddie’s body; she knew that look.</p><p> </p><p> Bill’s mouth hangs open, wagging uselessly without words. He flops to the floor, sitting down hard. “Oh. Shit.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” Richie responds.</p><p> </p><p>A loud thud disrupts the group. It was Patty, whom they had all forgotten was there. She has fainted.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter:<br/>Los Ageless - St. Vincent</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Patty and Beverly talk. Decisions are made.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Patty comes to in an unfamiliar environment. She rolls her head to the side and something soft and worn strokes against her cheek. She is lying down somewhere comfortable. Her head feels fuzzy, stuffed with cotton wool. She is faintly aware of something cool and wet on her forehead. She blinks herself slowly back to reality.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly is hovering over Patty nervously. She has a cold compress pressed to her friend’s forehead, gently dabbing at a fresh cut above her right eyebrow. Patty had cut herself, scraping her head against the hearth when she had fainted – luckily it had been just a cut and nothing worse – still, the sight of blood had caused chaos. Beverly and Ben had lifted Patty, slumped in their arms, onto the nearest couch, laying her down carefully on her back. Ben had propped her legs up on the far arm of the sofa, elevating them slightly – he’d seen it on TV before, he had explained to Bev. Beverly had shooed the rest of her friends out of the room, telling them to go continue their conversation elsewhere – and continue it they would – whilst Ben had fetched a cool damp cloth from the kitchen. And now, Beverly knelt beside the couch, her socked feet tucked up under her, worrying at Patty’s side.</p><p> </p><p>“What happened?” Patty squints at her from the couch.</p><p> </p><p>“You fainted,” Beverly removes the tea towel from her friend’s head, folding it neatly whilst she talks, “You cut your head on the fireplace on the way down, but it’s okay. It’s just a scrape.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, that’s so embarrassing.”</p><p> </p><p>“It <em>was</em> quite dramatic.” Beverly smirks.</p><p> </p><p>Patty groans, her hands covering her face. “I can’t believe I did that.”</p><p> </p><p>“So, do you always faint when you find out a famous comedian is gay? And I’m using the word “famous” very liberally.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wh- No! It wasn’t because of that!”</p><p> </p><p>“I know.” Bev is grinning wickedly at her friend, Patty shoots her a look that says ‘<em>ha-ha-very-funny</em>’ as she slowly tries to sit up on the sofa.</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Beverly rocks back on her coccyx, pulling her knees out from under her and up to her chest, securing her arms around them “are you alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think I’ve made better first impressions, but otherwise not too shabby.” Patty hesitantly reaches a hand up to her brow, feeling for the cut. She winces in pain as she touches it, her fingers coming away bloody.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly hands her back the tea towel and Patty holds it to her forehead, cringing.</p><p>“Seriously though, is everything okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know. I don’t normally faint. I think it was all just… a lot. I’m not used to all of this stuff like you guys are.”</p><p> </p><p>Bev chuckles, “Well, we try not to make a habit of it.”</p><p> </p><p>“What Mike was saying about the dreams… do you think that’s anything?”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly can feel the blood drain from her face, “I mean, I hope not. Knowing our history though, it would be a hell of coincidence if it wasn’t anything.”</p><p> </p><p>“Great.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry. I thought it would be a good idea to ask you to come here. I wanted to make it up to you for upsetting you and I thought it would be nice to have you here. I don’t think it was greatest idea.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, what do you mean ‘upsetting’ me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Your letter,” Beverly rests her chin on her knees, “You said you didn’t want to talk anymore and I figured it was because of what I said about…” the words catch in her throat, “about my miscarriage.”</p><p> </p><p>Patty blanches and for a second Beverly thinks she might faint again, “Oh. Bev, no. That’s- That’s… Shit.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s shit?”<br/><br/>“No! I mean, that’s not why I stopped writing. I didn’t get your letter until after I’d sent mine and by then I figured you wouldn’t want to talk to me anyway. It wasn’t about that, it was never about that. I’m so sorry you thought that.”</p><p> </p><p>“I just thought I’d been an insensitive idiot and I’d reminded you of Stan and how… well, everything, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>Patty shifts herself down from the couch and onto the floor, eye-level with Beverly she places a reassuring hand over her friend’s, “Beverly, it wasn’t that. It would never be that. I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m so sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“What was it then? What did I do?”</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t you at all. It was me. I was scared and I was stupid.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly turns to face her friend, feeling a tear leak down her cheek, she looks, waiting for Patty to continue.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d been having these dreams, these <em>nightmares</em>…”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was so scared, Beverly. I thought I was going crazy, but then listening to you all talk about it…”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry. You don’t have to be a part of whatever this is. I shouldn’t have asked you to come, you can leave if it’s too much. It’s okay.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Seriously?”</p><p> </p><p>“I want to know what this is. I want to know what’s going on. For Stan.”</p><p> </p><p>“For Stan.” Beverly squeezes Patty’s hand and smiles sadly.</p><p> </p><p>“I know you all said that it’s not <em>It</em>, that it’s something else, but what if it’s not? If it is <em>It</em>…” She draws a shaky breath, “I want to kill it myself.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a determination in Patty’s eyes that would be frightening if Beverly didn’t know it so intimately herself. It wasn’t just the five of them whose lives had been ruined by <em>It</em>; who had personal stakes in this. She could forget that sometimes.</p><p>Beverly untangles her limbs from each other, leaning over to embrace Patty, she feels her friend’s head rest against her shoulder and feels a spike of relief shoot through her. Patty wasn’t upset with her, that was good. This business with the horrific nightmares that both Richie and Mike had been having - and now Patty, too – that, quite frankly, was not. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Not to mention her own distinct lack of dreaming. She’d been quietly worrying about that for a long time but in addition to everything else? Something was happening. She isn’t sure if it was good or bad yet but it makes her feel extremely uneasy. She grips Patty tighter, suddenly afraid to let go. She wonders if she hadn’t meddled and brought everyone together if any of this would still be happening. But, of course, it would be. At least now they were all together. At least now they had a fighting chance in hell of working out that fuck was going on.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“I think you’re being a bit dramatic, Bill!” Richie rolls his eyes from across the kitchen.<br/><br/>“Oh, says you!” Bill waves a hand in his direction, exasperated.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, <em>says me</em>!” Richie mocks Bill’s tone, pulling a sneering face at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, stop!” Ben interjects, standing between the two men. He hovers at the edge of the kitchen island, holding his arms out either side to stop the argument, “Why don’t we all just let Mike talk, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>Ben nods in Mike’s direction, calmly. Mike is standing at the far end of the room, by the window. He smiles at Ben’s acknowledgement, before beginning to talk again, “I know we don’t want to think so, but this is obviously more than a coincidence. We should work out what’s going on before anything changes.”</p><p> </p><p>“And how in the hell are we meant to do that, Mike?” Richie folds his arms across his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“First, I think we need to both talk about what these dreams are. Maybe, there’s some sort of connection or correlation.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, you said you barely remembered yours. How is that gonna work?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, that’s why I think the second step is to induce sleep and see what happens.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like this conversation is going well.” Beverly stands in the doorway, Patty by her side. They must have approached whilst the others were distracted.</p><p> </p><p>“Mike wants to drug me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Interesting.”</p><p> </p><p>Mike sighs, he looks exhausted.</p><p> </p><p>“We actually do have something we need to talk to you guys about though.” Beverly works her way into the room, taking a seat at the counter, Patty sits down next to her and the men continue to stand. “Patty has been having these nightmares too.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill: “Fuck.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly: “It’s more than that. I haven’t said anything to any of you but… I don’t dream anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Richie: “Well, that’s not that unusual. Loads of people don’t remember their dreams.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly: “No, it’s not that. It’s more than that. Since Derry, I haven’t dreamt at all. Not once. Not even a memory of something. It’s just blank.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill: “Goddamn.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly: “I wake up drenched in sweat, screaming sometimes, terrified. It’s like I’ve had some bad nightmare, but I know I haven’t. There’s nothing there. It’s just… nothing.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben: “I don’t like this.”<br/><br/>Bill: “Still think I’m being dramatic, Rich?”<br/><br/>Richie: “Fuck you, man.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>It’s later that afternoon and the group are gathered in the living room. The furniture has all been pushed to the edges of the room, replaced with two camp beds that Ben had been keeping in their garage, a single mattress that was dragged from one of the spare rooms, and a sleeping bag, also fetched from the garage. Four sleeping spaces for the four people involved. Beverly had been determined to be tested like the others. Where their dreams clearly meant something she was certain that her distinct lack thereof must do too. Ben had tried to dissuade her from joining in but she had assured him that she was doing it anyway.</p><p> </p><p>In the time between their talk in the kitchen and now – before the hunt for bedding – they’d talked through their dreams. Mike’s were vague – flashes of colour and movement, ephemeral snapshots of something. Patty’s were disquieting – Stan in pain, Stan screaming; Stan dying. Richie’s were odd – music and loud noises, confusion; the faceless man. They seemingly held nothing in common. They’d quickly decided to move on to stage 2 of the plan after failing to draw any sort of connections between the three of them.</p><p>And now, back in the present, they were all sitting at their designated sleep areas. Mike on one of the camp beds, Beverly on the other, Richie at the sleeping bag, and Patty perched on the edge of the sole mattress. Each holds a sleeping pill in the palm, a glass of water in their other. They sit, waiting.</p><p> </p><p>Ben and Bill sit against the far wall, sharing one of the couches. They’re to observe, to see if anything odd happens; to make notes of movements and things that might be said. Ben looks less than comfortable with the situation. Bill holds a stopwatch in one hand, poised to time and see how long these dreams last. Bill is waiting for the clock on the wall to hit twenty to five, the time they’d agreed for the group to take the tablets, with the intention of being asleep by five.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly had laughed at the surreal situation as Ben had administered the pills five minutes ago, “Aren’t you guys lucky I still have these?”</p><p> </p><p>Richie had been the only one to respond, his face grim, “Yeah, I’m feeling real fucking lucky.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, if I’m being naïve but I don’t really understand what any of this is meant to achieve?” Patty shimmies herself across the mattress, sitting directly in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>Richie, who is now laying down on top of the sleeping bag, raises his hand “I agree with Patty, I’ve had enough vision quests and nightmares for one lifetime.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill: “Beep beep, Richie.”</p><p> </p><p>“Seriously, though, I still don’t understand what the point of this is.”</p><p> </p><p>“The point is that you shut up and sleep and we monitor you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, come on Big Bill, you know what I meant! Aren’t we meant to have to like an ECG or some shit for you to be able to do that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ideally, yes, but we don’t. Look, the idea is that you all go to sleep at around the same time. Ben and I will keep track of how much time passes and we will observe you to see if any of you do anything weird or say anything that could mean something. Maybe with all four of you being asleep in the same place at the same time, something will happen? Maybe you’ll all have the same dream! Maybe you won’t! We don’t know that, but what’s the harm in trying, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Richie, seemingly somewhat satisfied with Bill’s explanation, finally works his way into the sleeping bag properly.  He’s halfway zipped it up when he pauses, stuck on something Bill had said, “Wait, you said that we might all have the same dream. Does that mean Beverly is going to be in my dream?”</p><p> </p><p>“You wish.” Bev flips him off. </p><p> </p><p>The large hand on the clock strikes eight and Bill indicates for them to begin. Beverly swallows her pill dry, chasing it down with the cup of water. She clears her throat of the oily slickness that follows, lying down on her cot bed. She imagines she won’t be able to fall asleep in such an odd setting, even with the aide. She tries to roll over in the camp bed and smacks a hand against the metal edge. An involuntary “OWW” escapes her and she hears snickers from around the room. She feels as if she’s at the world’s most bizarre sleepover. She tries to remember if they ever all had a sleepover together when they were kids, but before she can reach the end of her thought, she’s asleep.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He’s fed up of dreaming. Richie doesn’t want to have another dream ever again in his entire life. He’s running. He’s not sure where he is but he’s running. He’s running faster than he’s ever run in his life. He doesn’t know where he’s going; which way he’s running. He knows he’s running away from something but he’s not sure what. The ground is uneven beneath his feet, he skids and slides over loose gravel and mud. He’s outside – he must be. He trips over, not looking where he’s going and flies across the clearing. He lands face-first in the dirt. He pulls himself up onto his knees, suddenly aware that he lost his glasses somewhere along the way. He scrabbles around for them, his hands turning over the rocks and grass in front of him. His fingers connect with something hard and he pulls it back, slotting his glasses back onto his face. There’s something wrong with them. The left lens is cracked, distorting his vision. There’s blood on it too. But it’s not his blood, he knows that. He can’t think about that now. He reaches out a hand to push himself up off the ground but it’s not his hand. It’s not his forty-three-year-old weathered and cracked hand, no, it’s the hand of a child. A thirteen-year-old, to be precise. He’s thirteen again and he’s back on his feet, running and running and running. His heart is in his throat, he’s wasted precious time tripping over and whatever is chasing him is catching up. He can hear it in the distance, snapping branches off trees, tromping over the grassy expanse. He’s scared, he’s so scared, but he keeps going. He’s running and running and running.</p><p>The landscape changes before him and the ground turns from pebbles and grass to sandy dirt. He skids to a halt. The quarry sits beneath him, an open mouth, taunting him. His breath catches in his throat as he looks out off the cliff he’s standing on. Whatever is chasing him is growing closer and closer; he can practically feel it’s hot breath against the back of his neck. He doesn’t have a choice. He jumps. He’s falling, weightless. He tumbles through the air as time slows around him. He wonders if he might simply keep falling forever when he makes contact with the water. He slams into the surface, his skin on fire. He cringes against the pain, trying to curl himself into a ball, to recede into himself. He struggles against the force of the water, unable to move his limbs as he’d like. Something brushes against his foot and he cries out. His cry a low gurgle as water rushes down his throat. He chokes and splutters, suddenly desperate to be above the surface. He struggles his way upward, the water above him a seemingly endless entity, he pushes and pulls at it, his lungs burning. He finally breaks the surface and gasps as the cold air smacks his face. He chokes and spits out the water. He scrabbles around for a moment, treading water, unsure of his next move. His chest heaves as he tries to breathe normally, still spluttering up water. The back of his throat stings and his nose feels fizzy. He spins around, looking for the shore. There isn’t one. Something brushes against his feet again and Richie pulls them up to his chest, instinctively. He bobs under the water, misplacing his weight. He kicks his legs out, propelling himself up again. He is panicking. He kicks and juts his legs, treading water frantically. The thing brushes against his foot again, curling up his ankle before he can pull himself away this time. Richie begins a tug of war with whatever has his leg, but it seems that the harder he pulls, the harder it pulls too. He flails, helplessly trying to grip onto something – anything – that will help him stay afloat but to no avail. He’s in the water again, being dragged down deeper and deeper, the light growing dimmer and dimmer. He tries to scream but water fills his lungs. He tries to pull away but his ankle is in a vice grip. His head grows heavy, his chest on fire. His vision swims, growing darker and darker.</p><p> </p><p>He’s lying on something flat and cold. He rolls over, throwing up saltwater and bile out of his mouth and nose. He vomits until his dizziness begins to dissipate. His head is pounding. He stretches a hand up to his face – his hand! It’s large and weathered and cracked; it’s his hand! He’s an adult again. He sighs with relief. His hand reaches his forehead, brushing his wet hair out of his eyes. He lays still for a second. Not thinking, not moving. He welcomes the peace. He’s about to close his eyes when he’s suddenly aware of something else in the space with him. He scrambles himself up onto his elbows, scanning the area. There’s someone there. They begin to move toward him, out of the shadow. He stays still, frozen in position. It’s a person, faceless in the dark. Richie is exhausted. He is exhausted of being terrified, of being watched; of being taunted. He wants to confront this man, who is always there, always there watching him; haunting his dreams. He opens his mouth to complain but before anything can happen the person moves swiftly towards him, into the light. Their face becomes clearer, their features defined. He can finally see their face. He knows this person. Oh, dear God, he knows this person. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Eddie?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter:<br/>Hounds of Love - Kate Bush</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Richie wakes up. Beverly processes.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Richie?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He gasps awake, bolting upright, nearly headbutting Mike – who had been leaning over him, concerned – in the process. His chest is pounding.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you alright?” Mike hovers in front of him, his voice calm, his warm eyes betraying his worry.</p><p> </p><p>Richie spins around the room, feeling everyone’s eyes boring into him. He tries to move, forgetting about the sleeping bag, his arms restricted. He struggles against the nylon bindings before finding the zip. He lets out a frustrated cry as he hastily unzips the bag and kicks it away from himself, standing up. He tries not to notice the look Ben and Bev swap.</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck this. I’m not doing this shit! Okay? I’m done!”</p><p> </p><p>He storms from the room.</p><p> </p><p>“Richie!” Beverly calls after him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go.” Bill gets up from the sofa, following Richie out of the room.</p><p> </p><p>He finds him sitting on the back step, a cigarette jammed in his mouth, a lighter cradled in his hands. Bill watches Richie’s thumb slip over the flint wheel repeatedly. Richie huffs angrily, flicking at the wheel with increasing impatience.</p><p>Bill sits down on the stoop next to him, grabbing the Zippo from his hand. “Here, let me,” He pushes down hard on the flint wheel, spinning it beneath his touch. A spark shoots from the lighter’s mouth, flickering for a second before blooming into a small flame. Richie leans forward, toasting the end of his cigarette in the flare, it emits a comforting low sizzling sound.</p><p> </p><p>Richie’s head thuds back against the brick wall behind him and Bill flips the lighter closed, putting it in his pocket. Richie takes a long, slow drag from the cigarette before tilting his head back and exhaling the smoke toward the sky.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>“No problem. I thought I’d come to see if you were okay.”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought you didn’t care.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m your friend, of course, I care.”</p><p> </p><p>Richie takes another drag, “What happened to ‘Richie is an asshole; I’m sad too’?”</p><p> </p><p>“I, uh, I shouldn’t have said all that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s, it’s just hard, you know? Trying to be a better person.”</p><p> </p><p>Richie says nothing.</p><p> </p><p>Bill opens his mouth as if to continue talking. Instead, he grabs the cigarette packet from Richie’s grip and jams one into his mouth, lighting it deftly with the Zippo he’d pocketed.</p><p>Richie still says nothing, but raises an eyebrow at his friend, surprised.</p><p> </p><p>“Been a while,” Bill removes the cigarette from his lips and holds it out in front of him, examining it, twirling it carefully between his thumb and forefinger, “Old habits, etc.”</p><p> </p><p>His seatmate grunts in agreement. The whole world seems to sit between them on the step.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all so fucking stupid, you know? So trivial and menial and insane. All of this. I mean, it’s just whatever, I guess. It’s all some fucked up cosmic karma for something awful we did in our previous lives. Do you think this is just our normality?”</p><p>Bill stays silent, apparently deep in thought. Richie, unsure whether he is meant to answer or not, stays silent.</p><p>“I try, you know? I really do try to be better. I’m in therapy and everything. The whole nine yards. My shrink keeps telling me that I need to ‘let go’ of my grief and accept the past and not let it define me and whatever-the-fuck, but, that’s a hell of a lot easier said than done. Maybe I’m just not that good of a person. Maybe that’s just who I’m meant to me: a 40-something divorced, shitty washed-up writer.</p><p>“The last thing Audra said to me when I signed the divorce papers was that she hoped I ‘got the help I needed’ – I mean, what does that even mean? What if I got the help, and this is still me? I’m still hot-headed and impulsive and make a hell of a lot of stupid decisions. I don’t know. Maybe a smarter person would understand what any of that meant. Maybe a better person would get to apologising as I intended to when I came out here. Shit.</p><p>“Look, Rich, I know I said it, but I mean it. I’m sorry. I really am. The guys rang around because they’re worried about you – and shit, I am too – but I had to go and be <em>me</em> about the whole thing. I was pissed that everyone was handling you with kid gloves and coddling you when I was hurting too. I still am; we all are! Then I come up here to confront you – fucking things up with Mike in the meantime – and then I get here and I’m too chickenshit to go through with it. I’m sorry that it all exploded out of me like that. I didn’t know you were… I didn’t know how you felt. Not that that excuses any of your shit! It doesn’t! I just shouldn’t have gone off like that.”</p><p> </p><p>Richie takes the final drag of his cigarette, smoking it down to its embers. He puffs out an impatient cloud of smoke before dropping the smouldering butt into the terracotta of an empty plant pot by his feet. This plant pot has become a makeshift ashtray for Richie during his stay here, a grimy build-up of dull-grey ash and squashed cigarette butts inside marking his presence.</p><p>“That was a dogshit apology, Big Bill.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not great with words.” Bill simply shrugs.</p><p> </p><p>Richie scoffs loudly, “I’m sure anyone that’s managed to make it through one of your books would agree with that,” he deadpans.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m trying to fucking apologise to you here, dude.”</p><p> </p><p>“You said yourself that you’re a shitty writer!”</p><p> </p><p>“Tell that to my Pulitzer Prize and Edgar Award then, asshole!”</p><p> </p><p>They sit in tense silence for a moment, their faces just inches away from each other, glowering, waiting for the other to snap first. The air is thick. Richie’s eyes meet Bill’s and instead of unloading venom and vitriol upon him, he catches the grumpy look on Bill’s face and bursts into hysterical laughter. Bill, unable to hold back emotion – although initially unsure of which one would come flooding out when he opened his mouth – starts cackling, too. They laugh for a long while, and it is cleansing. The way one feels better after a good and long-awaited cry, so do they feel content after laughing together. These old friends, these comrades in arms.</p><p> </p><p>The laughter dies out and Richie is left breathing heavily, sucking in air the way one does after laughing heartily. His stomach hurts from the strain. He leans back against the edge of the cool brick wall and jovially claps a hand to his friend’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck you, Bill.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill, the shorter of the two men, wobbles where he is seated at Richie’s smack. He grins over at Richie, “Fuck you, too, Rich.”</p><p> </p><p>Richie pulls a new cigarette out from the pack and lights it up, successfully by himself this time, he proffers the pack to Bill but Bill shakes his head.</p><p> </p><p>“So you just wanted to apologise, that’s it?”</p><p> </p><p>“I also wanted to ask you to stay.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course.”</p><p> </p><p>“Will you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, considering I have nowhere else to go, I don’t really have that much of a choice…”</p><p> </p><p>“Can I ask… What was it? I mean, you freaked out when you woke up – what did you see?”</p><p> </p><p>Richie flicks the ash of the cigarette into the plant pot ashtray. He exhales a large cloud of smoke with an irritated sigh. Bill watches as the grey cloud floats upward before dissipating into the sky.</p><p> </p><p>“Something fucked up.”</p><p> </p><p>“The clown?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Richie finishes the cigarette in one long drag and grinds the butt out into the concrete with his boot heel. He picks up the butt and chucks it into the sooty abyss of the ash-planter. He pushes his glasses back up his nose with the back of his thumb and turns to face Bill, “I saw Eddie.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Beverly is still sitting on her camp bed in the living room. The rest of the group have vacated the room. Ben left to make everyone coffee despite it now being nearly 6pm, Patty and Mike are sitting in the kitchen, swapping notes and theories over their dreams. After Richie freaked out and left and stormed off to wherever he stormed off to after Bill followed him after Ben had gone to busy himself with altruism, after Mike and Patty had left to start their conversation, Beverly still sat on her bed. She hadn’t moved. Not since Richie had burst awake like that. There had been something so raw about it, something so blood-chillingly desperate in his yell as he became conscious. Beverly can’t think properly.</p><p> </p><p>She knows she should be in the kitchen with the others, listening to the discussion and inputting her own ideas, but she can’t bring herself to move. She hadn’t dreamt again. She’d somehow hoped she would if they were all together – as if that would mean something or trigger something inside of her. It hadn’t.</p><p>There had been something though. Something disquieting. Something that scares her – even more so than Richie flipping out.</p><p> </p><p>There had been flashes of colour, lights, and a scream. A scream so raw it almost sounded like a wounded animal. It had torn through her, so real, so visceral that for a moment she hadn’t been sure if it was her or something else that had made the noise.</p><p>There had been something about it that was so painful; so intense and dizzying.</p><p>The lights had disoriented her so much she had felt sick, and then that scream… that terrible scream…</p><p> </p><p>She is going to tell the others. She is. Had she herself not been crusading for the truth mere hours earlier?  She thinks about what would happen if she went into the kitchen right now and just told them; about what would happen if she waits for Bill and Richie to return and tell them all at once. She weighs up the pros and cons of the situation.</p><p>Ben would hyper-rationalise, trying to come up with a logical and grounded explanation for everything, Richie would roll his eyes and make some morose joke about her sanity, Bill would guilt-spiral, Mike would deep-dive theorising it to be something batshit she’s never heard of, and Patty would… Well, she’s not quite sure how Patty would react yet.</p><p> </p><p>She will tell them. She can’t leave it, she knows she can’t. But… she wants some time to process it first. She wants to work it out what it means before she tries to explain it before she has to speak it out loud and give this part of her away. She’s hesitant to do this – she knows that her friends will tell her that it was a dream, that it was some part of all of this, but she knows this isn’t true. She knows that it was not a dream. No, it was something much, much worse.</p><p>She just needs to work out what.</p><p> </p><p>She makes her way to the kitchen and is surprised to see that both Richie and Bill are in fact there. She tries to catch Bill’s eye, to silently ask him if everything went okay, but he’s busy, scrawling hurriedly on a notepad that sits on their counter. Richie is standing to his right, leaning over the other man’s shoulder, squabbling with him about something menial. It’s such a familiar sight that Beverly can feel her muscles relax at the image. It’s comforting to see them arguing like this – in a bickering, friendly way, not loaded with suspicion and anger. It’s so comforting in fact, that she almost forgets what it is that they’re talking about.</p><p> </p><p>“No, that’s not right! It was more rocky!”</p><p>“’More rocky’? You mean, ‘rockier’?”</p><p>“Fuck you, I’m just trying to make sure you describe it properly.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, do you want to write about your messed-up dream instead?”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly pulls up a stall at the kitchen island. Ben wordlessly hands her a mug of coffee, he places a warm hand on her shoulder and she acknowledges it with a gentle squeeze. He takes his hand away and returns to where he had been – at the sink, washing dishes – and Beverly’s shoulder suddenly feels bare. Her skin feels cold where his hand had just been and she longs for him to come back, to wrap her in his comforting embrace; to make everything okay. She wishes this were a normal night and they were eating dinner together in the lounge, curled up on the sofa, exchanging banter about whatever they were watching. Ben always laughed the hardest at any joke and cried the most over anything sad. She loved him for this. She loved him for many innumerate reasons, but if she could distil her love down into one moment, one feeling, it would be that. Watching him emote, watching him feel and express unabashedly, watching him love and empathise and understand made her love him more than anything. A knot forms in her throat as she thinks about this and she once more wishes he were beside her, his solid, reassuring presence slowing the hammering of her heart.</p><p> </p><p>Richie and Bill are still shouting over each other, Mike is standing off to the side, still in conversation with Patty.</p><p>Beverly feels like she’s walked into a room at a party where she doesn’t know anyone. She doesn’t want to feel like that anymore. She reaches across the counter and grabs the pad from Bill’s unsuspecting grasp.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey!” Richie exclaims.</p><p> </p><p>She scans the scrawl of Bill’s godawful handwriting.</p><p> </p><p>“This is what you dreamt about?” She raises an eyebrow at Richie.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s it mean?” She says, stupidly.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not sure yet.” It’s Bill, this time, “Obviously,” he waves his hand vaguely toward her, “There’s some pretty heavy symbolism and Eddie’s presence and stuff but in the grand scheme of things? Who knows?”</p><p> </p><p>“Eddie?” She hadn’t reached the end of the page yet.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” Richie’s response is quiet, subdued.</p><p> </p><p>“Shit.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep.”</p><p> </p><p>“What did he say?” Patty asks. Beverly hadn’t realised they’d all been listening. She spins to look at her. Patty’s eyes are black holes.</p><p> </p><p>“He didn’t say anything.” Richie looks at her, confused.</p><p> </p><p>Patty sits down heavily in the nearest chair and Beverly cringes at the sound as the metal legs screech across the floor. She drops into the chair like a discarded puppet, no control over her limbs.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” Bill, again.</p><p> </p><p>Mike, still standing next to Patty, looks down at her concerned. Beverly follows his eye line and train of thought. Patty’s eyes stare off into the middle distance and her jaw is clenched tightly. She looks like someone has hollowed her out inside.</p><p> </p><p>Mike takes the lead, “Patty saw…” He looks up and his eyes meet Beverly’s, his expression is unreadable, “No, she spoke to… She spoke to Stan.”  </p><p> </p><p>“Oh, fuck.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter:<br/>Whirring - The Joy Formidable</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Beverly, Mike and Richie all have very similar coping mechanisms.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Patty was outside her home in Atlanta. She recognised the neat box hedges and the lush lawn that she’d once been so proud of. The home she’d lived in when she was Mrs Stanley Uris when her whole life was ahead of her. The home that felt so empty to her now.</p>
<p>The sky above her was blue and purple, dark storm clouds rumbling away. She could see the driving rain that lashed against the house but she could not feel it. Still, she entered the house, tentatively walking from room to room. It looked just as it had when she’d left it except tidier, neater. There weren’t piles of unopened mail stacked on the console table in the hall, there weren’t books left open on the kitchen table, her laptop wasn’t where she’d kept it for the past year – on the kitchen counter, for ease of access. No, this wasn’t the house she had left recently, this was the house she’d shared with her husband.</p>
<p>She passed doorway after doorway as she walked down the hall, stopping every now and then to look at the photos that hung framed on the walls. Stan and her on their wedding day, her white gown flowing behind her. Stan and her on their honeymoon, smiling happily on a beach. Stan receiving his award for Best Junior Accountant at his firm. Patty, grinning at the graduation of the English as a Foreign Language class she taught. Finally, them both together, the year they’d met, sitting on the campus lawn at university. They were huddled away in the shade under a tree. Patty had a textbook open next to her, Stan wore sunglasses. He had an arm around her shoulders. Her head was thrown back in laughter at some long-forgotten joke, whilst he grinned down at her. His eyes were dark and warm. She remembered how it had felt to be looked at like that by him, to feel like she was the only person in the whole world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next room on her tour was the lounge. The room called out to her, she knew that whatever it was she was meant to find was in there. A deep churning sickness in her gut told her to scream and run away. To go home to her <em>real</em> home and hide. Every cell in her body was screaming at her to not open that damn door and yet…</p>
<p>It swung open noiselessly. She stepped into the room with her heart in her throat. Everything was calm and quiet, and there, sitting on the sofa, glowing and beautiful, was her husband.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Stan,” His name left her mouth as a breathy sob.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He smiled over at her, his face the picture of calm. “Hi, Patty.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her words caught in her throat, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t do anything except run to him. She collapsed beside him, frantically pulling him into a hug. He smelt of soap and fabric softener. She gripped onto him, squeezing him beneath her touch, feeling his solidity. She’d missed that. She’d missed him. More than she could bear. He was a life raft and she was drowning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ve missed you so much,” she sobbed into his shoulder, feeling the gentle tickle of his hair across her cheek.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ve missed you too. More than you know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His voice, his wonderful voice. She had missed it so much. Patty could hardly cope. She didn’t want to let go of him, not ever again, but she had to see his face. She had to study every inch of it, every curve and scar and dimple before he was gone again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She pulled herself away reluctantly, gathering his face in her hands. She stroked gentle circles on his cheeks with her thumbs. Stan had started crying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love you.” She whispered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love you, too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m with your friends,” she blurted, “In Nebraska. They’re all there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good.” Stan smiled a sad smile, “That’s good. That’s how it’s meant to be.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Stan reached up and took one of his wife’s hands from his face, holding it softly in front of him. “This is important, Patty. This is all so important, more than any of you realise. You all need to be together for this.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek gently. She closed her eyes against his touch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Together for what, Stan? What’s going on?”</p>
<p>She opened her eyes and he was gone. He’d gone. She was alone. He’d been taken from her, again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And then, she’d woken up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mike had relayed this whole exchange to an array of shocked faces in the kitchen. Patty had wordlessly stood up and left the room when Mike had finished talking. The others had continued to sit in shocked silence. Eventually, Bill had excused himself and hurried away; everyone else following suit one by one. That had been nearly five hours ago now.</p>
<p>It was gone 11pm and everyone had crashed out from either mental, emotional or physical exhaustion, or some combination thereof. Everyone except for Beverly, that is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She sits now in the living room, having returned to it after the kitchen had lost its appeal. An hour ago she had told Ben she would follow him up to bed soon, but she knew that she would not. Despite everything, despite how drained she felt, she knew she would not be able to get back to sleep anytime soon. She had shoved the couch back into its original placement, kicking the makeshift sleeping arrangements from earlier out of the way. And now she sits there, trying to work out what the hell is going on; trying to untangle the mass of thoughts in her head. She nurses a whiskey, despite thinking it tastes like piss she needs something stronger than beer right now. The whiskey helps, its warm hands reaching into her brain and comforting her.  She takes another sip and drains the glass, welcoming the pleasant heat it burns down her throat. She wobbles over to the bookshelf, grabbing the bottle of Wild Turkey and refilling her supply. As she sinks back into the soft leather embrace of the sofa, a knock at the door startles her.</p>
<p>It’s Mike, standing in the doorway, looking rumpled in his sleep clothes. He’s wearing an old pair of tracksuit bottoms and a creased t-shirt. He smiles at Bev as she notices him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Am I interrupting?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beverly returns his smile, patting the space of the couch next to her. “I couldn’t sleep.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can see that.” Mike picks up a glass from the coffee table and fills it up before he settles down beside her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I just can’t stop thinking about it all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is that what the alcohol is for?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She chuckles.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I get it, though. I can’t stop thinking about it either. What Patty told me, what Richie said, what I saw… I really thought we were past this stuff.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hmm. Tell me about it. I was looking forward to having a semi-normal rest of my life, but hey! Guess that’s not happening!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s Mike’s turn to laugh now, he shifts his body so his knees are tucked up next to him on the couch and nearly slops his drink over himself in the process.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So, what did you see?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe you thought wrong.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Was it bad?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mikes sighs, draining his drink.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s fine. I just… I just want to be normal for one night, you know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beverly looks at her friend. He looks exhausted. They’d all thought everything was over, but here they all were again. Here he was, their lighthouse keeper; their guiding light. Mike, wonderful Mike, the seer, the perceiver.</p>
<p>Beverly strokes his arm gently.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m really sorry, Mikey.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So am I.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She leans over to refill both their drinks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>An hour and numerous drinks later, Beverly’s train of thought is interrupted by the far-off sound of a door slamming. She doesn’t say anything at first, momentarily unsure if she had imagined it or not. It’s when Mike sits up, alert, that she realises she hasn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Was that…?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The front door!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We should see who that was, right?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They both jump up from the sofa, Beverly misplacing her footing at the sudden movement. Mike grabs her arm and holds her steady. They move in the direction of the front door, careful not to make too much noise and wake anyone else. Another distant slam makes Beverly’s ears prick up – a car door. She nudges Mike behind her and starts moving quicker, motioning for him to follow suit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beverly throws the door open as she hears a car start. She runs down the steps to see Richie, sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, his head against the steering wheel. Beverly approaches the car cautiously, knocking on the window when she arrives to notify her friend of her presence. Richie’s head barely moves but his hand motions for her to move to the passenger side of the car.</p>
<p>Beverly turns back towards the front door, Mike’s comforting presence bathed in the light from the hall. She raises a hand to him to communicate <em>I’ve got this</em> and he returns inside, closing the door and taking the light with him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beverly climbs into the passenger seat. Richie barely grunts recognition, his head glued to the steering wheel. She leans over and flips the headlights off, placing the car in neutral. She flips the interior light on, finally getting a good look at her friend in the night. He's not just leaning against the dashboard, but fully slumped against it, as if all muscle has gone from his body.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"What's going on, Rich?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I want a drink."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"There are drinks in the house"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I want to go to a bar but I don't know any fucking bars around here."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> Bev pulls her seatbelt on, “Okay, you drive and I’ll direct.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Mike stumbles back down the hall to his room. The corridor swims before him as he falls back down it. He reaches his room and collapses onto the bed. The mattress engulfs him as he wriggles down further into it. He closes his eyes against the dark and the air sways around gently him. He sighs, content. He is enjoying not having to think. He is enjoying not having to see. He rolls over, the cool surface of his pillow caressing his cheek.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A distant knocking sounds. He can’t place it. He must be dreaming already. His bedroom door opens and a figure stands in the doorway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uh, Mike?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s Bill.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry, I, uh, I heard you up and I thought we could talk…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Bill is in the doorway. Beautiful Bill, Big Bill, their leader, his love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“…I’m just realising this is a terrible idea. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mike mumbles the words half into his pillow. He composes himself, sitting upright, determined to look the other man in the eye. He can’t have him here and then let him leave. He can’t lose him again. It isn’t fair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, stay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Mike, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have-“</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Stay, please.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He twitches the duvet, indicating his meaning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Bill looks conflicted. He hovers in the doorway, neither in nor out of the room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I didn’t-“</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He begins, but Mike cuts him off.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It won’t change anything. I just… Just for tonight, please, stay?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Bill smiles and it is a smile so sad that Mike can’t bear it.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, he finally enters the room, crawling under the covers. He curls into Mike’s back, his head resting gently between his shoulder blades, an arm slung over his chest. Mike exhales as his missing puzzle piece clicks into place.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The curtains flutter in the breeze from the open window. The cool air laps at Mike’s skin. It’s delicious. The draught bathes his skin, renewing him. For the first time in a long time, he thinks he might sleep okay tonight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ten shots of tequila, a beer, and a whiskey please, barkeep.” Richie drums his hands on the bar.</p>
<p>The bartender shoots him an annoyed look before going off to make his drinks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hooo okay you really do want to <em>drink</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Believe me I’ve mastered the art of knowing what will get me drunkest the quickest.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll just have a beer, please.” Bev smiles apologetically at the bartender, producing a wedge of notes from her right shoe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Richie raises an eyebrow, choosing not to comment on her procurement. He, of all people, knows that old habits die hard. He does, however, decide to comment on her assumption that she is paying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks, Sugar Mommy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“In your dreams, Richard.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They get their drinks and sit in a grizzled booth in a back corner. The plastic on the bench seat is blistered and cracked, foam stuffing bubbling out of the pocked holes in its surface.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Richie downs the shots in a row, barely wincing after each hit, the sign of a seasoned drinker. After the shots he swallows the whiskey, Beverly watches on astonished. 11 empty glasses litter the table as Richie slowly glides the pint in front of him. He holds it reproachfully, waiting for his first sip.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Living hardcore?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Always.” He winks</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Life of a hotshot DJ, right?” Beverly giggles, suddenly feeling the alcohol hit her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not a DJ.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes, you are!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Bev, dear, I have never DJed in my entire fucking life.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, you are! Like Fatboy Slim!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fatboy Slim? What the fuck are you talking about?” he laughs,</p>
<p>“What a timely reference!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He seems to think for a moment, taking a long sip of the amber fluid before him.</p>
<p>“Fuck it, yeah, I’m Fatboy Slim.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beverly, already drunk from the whiskey back home, takes a short sip of her own beer before thumping her head down in her hands. She hums lightly to herself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Richie laughs,</p>
<p>“Oh, Bev, you are <em>gooone</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Shhhhhh.” She lifts a finger to her lips, sleepily.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He snorts and some beer fizzes up his nose.</p>
<p>“I think you have a drinking problem, babe.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I think <em>you</em> have a drinking problem.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can live with that”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter:<br/>Water - Ra Ra Riot<br/> </p>
<p>Apologies that it's been months since the last update!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ben is exhausted, the conversation comes to a head.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ben is the first to wake up the next morning. He climbs out of bed carefully, pressing a gentle kiss into Beverly's bed head. He leaves the room, nearly tripping over Richie as he does so, who is inexplicably asleep on their bedroom floor. He slips on his running shoes and disappears into the early morning. He pads down his normal route, through the trees that surround their house, the mud path kicking up dust behind him. The sky is a soft orange as the sun rises – hinting that it will rain later - but for now, the air is cool and dry. Ben enjoys the quiet of his early morning runs, no music, no cars, no people. Just him and the wildlife. Birdsong above him in the treetops and the thudding of his soles against the dirt are the only two sounds. He decides to take a longer route today, avoiding moving toward the town centre, meandering out toward the edge of town instead. He runs through fields and knee-high grass, out towards the cornfields. The sweet smell wafting from the stalks tells him it is nearly time for them to be harvested. By now, his heart is thumping hard in his chest and his shirt is stuck to his chest with sweat. Ben stops at the edge of the field, panting, and drains his water bottle. He splashes the dregs over his face and hair and starts running again, back the way he came.</p><p>Ben approaches his turning for the house when he realises that enough time has passed that at least some of his houseguests must be awake by now. The sky is a pale grey and he weighs his options, jogging on the spot. He decides to be a good Samaritan and get coffee for everyone. He walks the rest of the way home from the café, a tray of coffees in each hand. The sky grows darker and darker as he approaches his home. Drops of rain start to fall as he makes his way up the steps to his door, jogging the last few paces. He balances one tray of drinks atop the other as he fumbles for his keys in his pocket. The door creaks open behind his key and he sighs, relieved. He kicks off his shoes before making his way to the kitchen. Ben places the coffees down on the counter and the heavens open, as if on cue.</p><p>He slumps into a seat, glad he made it just in time. He pulls the nearest coffee free from its cardboard dock and takes a long sip.</p><p>By the time Ben has worked up the energy to stand up again and make himself some porridge, Patty has entered the room.</p><p>They smile at each other politely.</p><p>“I bought coffee for everyone.” Ben waves a hand across the counter, indicating to the various cups.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, thanks, Ben.”</p><p>She sits diagonally across from him at the counter and drinks from her coffee cup slowly. She looks utterly exhausted. Ben wonders if she got any sleep at all last night. He is about to try and strike up a conversation with her when Richie enters the room in a holey t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. He yawns dramatically as he sticks a hand under his shirt to scratch his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Can someone tell this rain to shut up? Some of us hungover, here!”</p><p> </p><p>He flops down on the stall next to Patty and grabs a coffee without even asking.</p><p>Ben rolls his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Beverly follows suit, padding into the kitchen in fresh clothes, her wet hair scraped back. She smiles in greeting to her friends and gives Ben a soft kiss on the cheek before sitting down in the empty seat next to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Coffee?” She points at the three cups left pressed into their cardboard home.</p><p> </p><p>Ben smiles in return, “Thought it might be needed.”</p><p> </p><p>Beverly wiggles one free, before taking a long gulp, “You weren’t wrong.”</p><p>She sighs, content. Richie, beside her, moans and groans, holding his head in his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay there, Rich?” Ben asks.</p><p> </p><p>Richie groans.</p><p> </p><p>“We ended up at a bar last night,” Beverly explains.</p><p> </p><p>Ben chuckles, knowingly, “I see,” he takes a final bite of his porridge, scraping the bowl clean with his spoon, “Has anyone seen Bill or Mike this morning?”</p><p> </p><p>“I heard them talking when I got up.” Patty chimes in, hardly visible behind Richie’s domineering frame. Her eyes are on the counter and she twiddles her now empty coffee cup between her hands, nervously.</p><p> </p><p>“Best leave them to it.” Beverly squeezes Ben’s thigh before standing up to start on her own breakfast.</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Ben turns his attention to his hungover friend, “What’s the plan today, Richie?”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?” Richie doesn’t lift his head from the counter.</p><p> </p><p>“The plan? What’s next on the to-do list?”</p><p> </p><p>“’Plan’?” Richie slowly lifts his head from the marble, his eyes flicker behind his glasses, “Oh, right, you mean with all of this shit?” He gestures around him, wildly.</p><p> </p><p>Ben nods. Patty looks anxious.</p><p> </p><p>"Well, I figured we'd let Bill and Mike finish having make-up sex and then see where the day takes us."</p><p> </p><p>Beverly chuckles from over at the counter. </p><p> </p><p>"Helpful as ever." Ben sighs. </p><p> </p><p>“No problem, man.” Richie grins through a mouthful of the bowl of Cheerios Beverly has placed in front of him.</p><p>Ben’s head hurts. The coffee he’s just drunk and the lashing rain outside pound in his head. It’s the thudding of feet against the ground, the hard impact of the sole on land. He just wants it to stop. He just wants to be able to spend time with his friends without there having to be some otherworldly pretext.</p><p>“I think we need to talk about it,” It’s Patty, still barely visible from behind Richie.</p><p>Richie moves back in his chair to look at her, and Ben can see her again clearly for the first time since he’d sat down. She’s pushed her hair back over her shoulders, the cut on her forehead suddenly visible. Ben had almost forgotten about that with everything that had happened since. The wound has started to scab, a deep red that protrudes from her skin. There’s some dried blood matted into her eyebrow, still.</p><p>“We know my dream, and Richie’s, but we never got around to hearing about Mike’s or Bev’s,” She smiles at Beverly apologetically over the counter, “I think, unfortunately, we still need to talk about that before we can go any further with this.”</p><p>“God, I <em>hate</em> talking!” Richie groans dramatically, throwing his head back.</p><p>Immediately realising what he’s said, he flings his head back up, a warning “Don’t,” fired at Beverly’s cocked eyebrow.</p><p>Patty is right. Ben knows this. They need to all properly sit down and talk this through. Again. He’d hoped somehow that a new day might mean a new perspective, a sudden roiling of ideas frothing inside him. When that hadn’t happened he’d hoped that maybe the run would knock something loose. That normally worked when it came to his job. If he couldn’t think of what type of window would work best with the build whilst also fitting in with the surrounding landscape, he would go for a run. Normally, around halfway through, he’d be focusing on nothing but his route and the sound of his own breathing and then <em>bam</em> – the solution would drop into his brain. Perfectly wrapped and presented. Funnily enough, it was never as straightforward when it came to the supernatural.</p><p>At the same time, Ben also agrees with Richie. He’s tired of talking about this. He wants to just get on with whatever is happening so his life can return to some semblance of normality. But, Patty is right, they need to know the full details of where they stand before they can go any further. He doesn’t begrudge her for her correctness, he himself is normally the pragmatist; the realist. But, he’s older and he’s tired. He doesn’t want to be doing this. He wants to be sitting in his living room with Beverly and the dog they’d spoken about adopting, watching TV and just being normal for once. Instead, he’s sitting in his kitchen, in a house full of people, weighing up the pros and cons of whatever nightmare scenario they’ve somehow gotten themselves entangled in this time.</p><p> </p><p>Mike enters the kitchen, dressed for the day. He makes a beeline for the – now probably cold – coffee on the counter and smiles at Ben appreciatively. In the distance, a shower starts, signalling Bill’s entrance into the day. They’re all up now; they have to get on with it.</p><p>And so, they talk.</p><p>Patty and Richie recount their dreams again, refreshing them in the group mind. Then, it’s Beverly’s turn. She explains what she saw – or, rather, what she didn’t see. Flashes of colour, panic, horror, and that awful, terrible scream. It had been something else, she’d explained, not quite a dream but not a memory, either. But, it was something real, definitely, tangibly, real. It happened, or maybe it would happen, and that terrified her; that was all she knew.</p><p>Mike, well, Mike had seen some shit. He’d seen the room they were in, Ben and Beverly’s living room, he’d seen his friends asleep. He’d felt the chill in the room and noticed the bleak grey tinge to everything. And, he’d walked. He’d walked through their house, except, the room on the other side of their bathroom door wasn’t their bathroom. No, it was another living room, one he didn’t recognise. And there, he’d seen Patty. She was talking to someone – someone he couldn’t see. Patty’s words hit his ears wrong, sounding unlike any recognisable word in any language. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, what was happening, but he could feel the grief with which she spoke. He had left the room, confused, passing down the hall and opening various doors, to see what else he could find. In what should be Beverly’s office, Richie lies shivering in what looks like a cave of some kind. Further down the hall, the last door – a store cupboard, as far as Mike is aware – flings open of its own accord. He looks into the room, and it’s Beverly and Ben’s living room again. And there they all sit, Beverly, Ben, Richie, Bill, Patty, and himself, sitting holding hands in a circle, like some coven or something. They’re in the middle of the room, their eyes closed, all except for Beverly. Her head is thrown back, at such an angle almost perpendicular to the rest of her body, her eyes are wide open, and she is screaming. An awful, animal scream. There is something heavy in the air above them, something he can’t bring himself to look at. But, he knew. Right then and there, he knew. He knew what they needed to do next.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“I’m just fed up of this shit. I don’t want to be dealing with <em>It</em> again. I thought this was all finally over.” Richie throws a cushion across the living room, earning a sharp look from Ben. They’ve finished discussing what they saw, and they’re all still reeling from Mike’s revelation. There’s more in store for them, there’s more they need to do, and Christ, if Richie isn’t profoundly over it.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“What if… what if it’s not?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not over? No, <em>shit!”</em></p><p> </p><p>“No, I mean, what if it’s not It? What if it’s something else?”</p><p> </p><p>“Great, so there’s some other Lovecraftian eldritch abomination that’s meddling in our lives?”</p><p> </p><p>Mike ignores his comment, “Think about it… in those dreams you’re scared, right? Of course, you are. But, are you <em>frightened</em>?”</p><p>The group sits in silence for a moment before Mike continues, “I’m scared as shit when I dream, but... I don’t think it’s malevolent. It doesn’t <em>feel</em> malevolent. I think it’s something else.”</p><p> </p><p>Bill perks up, an idea lightbulb practically shooting out of his head, “Wait, Patty! You said you saw Stan, and he said this was all important? Maybe Mike is right, maybe it is something else, but it’s obviously something that needs us together; something that connects us. Just, what exactly is that…?”</p><p> </p><p>Ben speaks up for the first time, “Loss.”</p><p>Everyone turns to look at him, “It’s <em>loss.</em> We all lost people - people we loved. Patty saw Stan and Richie saw Eddie. Maybe we don’t know the source of this, but what if it’s real? What if it’s really them?”</p><p> </p><p>Richie: “No. Fuck this. Look, Patty, guys, I’m sorry, but it’s not real, okay? Stan and Eddie died over two years ago. They’re dead, okay? They’re fucking <em>dead</em>. It can’t be them.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hang on, Patty said she saw Stan and I believe her. Do you have any reason to believe that the Eddie that you saw wasn’t really him?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, other than the fact that he’s dead and – oh, huh, oh, yeah – it was a <em>dream</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>Mike, resigned: “Richie, you know what he meant.”</p><p> </p><p>“All this is obviously something, okay? But, I’m sorry if I don’t believe that it’s our dead friends communicating with us through the veil! Whatever Patty saw was just a projection of grief, it obviously wasn’t actually Stan!”</p><p> </p><p>The room falls silent again as everyone turns to Patty. </p><p> </p><p>“I think I’d know my own fucking husband when I saw him. It <em>was</em> him.” She storms out.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone sits and glares at Richie.</p><p> </p><p>Bill: “What the fuck is wrong with you?”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Song for this chapter:<br/>Washing Machine Heart - Mitski</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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